


Magnus Drabbles

by paperdream



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Assistant banter, Canon Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Dehumanization, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Dreams and Nightmares, Episode Related, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Jon becoming the Archivist, Loneliness, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Possessive Behavior, Stalking, ace author, bad self image, canon compliant in the "you can't prove it didn't happen" way in bits, canon typical jon having a bad time, fanon typical jonahlias being a creep, general existential crisis brought on by finding out your life is controlled by eldritch horrors, hella daisira once we get to eps they show up in, john amherst is tagged but not in a stan way i like writing abt killing him, michael can have all the pronouns for a treat, semi graphic canon typical pipe murder, sorry but we do stan angela, the safehouse is listed as a character on purpose i cant believe no else has...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 195
Words: 19,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25407238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdream/pseuds/paperdream
Summary: Drabbles written to go with each episode as I go back through TMA :3Tagged characters are just the ones who have at least one drabble focused on them/from their perspective.
Relationships: Adelard Dekker & Gertrude Robinson, Agnes Montague & Raymond Fielding, Basira Hussain & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Elias Bouchard & Basira Hussain, Elias Bouchard & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Peter Lukas, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Naomi Herne/Evan Lukas
Comments: 61
Kudos: 54





	1. MAG 001: Angler Fish

Jon set the file down, noticing offhand that his hands were trembling. Feeling suddenly exhausted, he pushed Nathan Watts' drunken nightmare and the creeping grasp of Ashley Dobson's final photograph from his head and stood on shaky legs.

He had hoped to find the breakroom empty but instead found Martin fussing over a pot of tea. Naturally. His assistant jumped at his entrance. "Oh! Jon! Would you- would like some tea?"

He had, actually, hoped to get a cup to calm his nerves, but found the desire overtaken by annoyance. "Shouldn't you be working, Martin?" Martin blushed, and scurried out.


	2. MAG 002: Do Not Open

The walls of his apartment loomed. The statement today was unsubstantiated, the product of a lonely, drug-addled man. Nevertheless, Jon couldn't help thinking of Joshua Gillespie's empty apartment building as he stared out the window of his own domicile. How far from George's last action had deliverymen knocked on another door and retrieved a coffin? He remembered with a shiver that the vanishing man was also named John. 

Jon gritted his teeth. There was no coffin, no "John", and no one watching him, at home or work. He was precisely as alone as any inhabitant of London, and no more.


	3. MAG 003: Across the Street

"Sasha." Jon tried to hide that he was nearly as startled by her presence so late in the day as she seemed to be by his appearance. "Why are you here so late?"

Sasha smiled absently, looking up from the desk. "Is it?" Her eyebrows jumped, "Oh, it _is_." She closed the item on her desk- an A4 notebook. "I got distracted with Graham Folger's notebook. Got the idea that maybe somewhere it would say something different." She slid the notebook into a drawer. "Doesn't, though." She shook her head as though dismissing the thought, and they both chuckled awkwardly.


	4. MAG 004: Page Turner

Gerard cursed himself. He'd gotten into the habit of playing music as loudly as possible whenever his mum manifested, but now it had caused him to miss their guest. He only caught a glimpse of the man as he fled, barely enough for the Eye to lead him to his quarry.

The book was genuine- he should have taken Mary's glee as confirmation. He had to sneak past her to get the money. If she realized the man was willing to sell, she'd expect Gerard to bring the Leitner back, and make his life hell if he burned it instead.


	5. MAG 005: Thrown Away

Sasha scrubbed harder that night, brushing her teeth, that she typically would. She couldn't stop herself thinking of the image that had accompanied the police report, a great heap of white going gray, with red still lingering around the roots of some of the teeth. She craned her mouth open, checking to see that all was in order- none of her own teeth had vanished without notice, none were turning black with decay. The image of a bag full of teeth flashed behind her eyelids again, and she shivered. Give her ghosts and ghouls all day long, but not teeth.


	6. MAG 006: Squirm

Tim beat his head against his desk while Sasha looked on impassively and Martin hovered at the breakroom door. "Er… Tim, you alright?"

"This day will never end!" Tim moaned, accompanying himself with metronomic thumps.

Sasha rolled her eyes. "Just be glad you didn't get stuck doing follow up on the worm lady statement." She shuddered theatrically. "Last week all the teeth and now this? Why do I have to work the nasty ones?"

Tim stopped thumping to raise a sardonic eyebrow. "Because Jon thinks Martin and I are incompetent."

Sasha nodded in acceptance. Martin spluttered to defend Tim's competence.


	7. MAG 007: The Piper

Wilfred didn't dare meet the eyes of the figure that loomed over him. One glimpse was enough to impress indelibly on his memory, too many limbs and faces joined together in frenetic harmony. The intertwining sound of battle and music made his ears pound; he had no desire to overwhelm another sense trying to catch a second look.

"Please." His voice shook, seemed barely audible, but he knew the figure heard his words plainly. "Please, I don't want to die yet."

A considering pause. One hand offered a plain pen. The War carried on as Wilfred accepted pen and bargain.


	8. MAG 008: Burned Out

Agnes approached the house alone. The man who answered the door looked down at her with faint amusement.

"You must be Agnes? I'm Raymond." He guided her into the house, his hand not quite touching her back. She squinted up at him silently, hands locked around the straps of the backpack containing her possessions. She wanted to burn the man taking her from the Lightless Flame's embrace, to rage and scream like she had when she was younger.

An older girl stood further inside. "This is Doris. She can show you the girls' room."

Agnes followed Doris, silent and obedient.


	9. MAG 009: A Father's Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did way more research for this than 100 words warrants. I'm sure I got something about the functioning of UK police and child services wrong, since I had trouble making sense of the Wikipedia article on the former and ended up using my last viewing of Hot Fuzz as primary reference, and figuring out which agency is responsible for foster children, etc, over there was also weirdly difficult. Sorry if you're British, but I straight up do not understand how your government works, like, at all, at any level.

A little girl sat staring blankly ahead in one of the uncomfortable chairs in an office in the rear of the police station. She didn't react at all to the frenzy of activity that occupied the rest of the station in spite of the late hour. Officers avoided looking at her when they had to pass by; everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of someone from the NSPCC to take her away.

Earlier she had been wailing hysterically. On seeing the contents of her family shed, so had several officers. But now Julia Montauk sat alone, small and quiet and tearstained.


	10. MAG 010: Vampire Killer

Martin's journey to the breakroom wasn't generally interrupted by sizable crowds, complete with paramedics. He debated turning back to his desk in Research, but curiosity got the better of him.

"What's going on?" he hissed to the nearest person. Jessica, from the Library, he thought.

Her face lit up with the excitement of someone sharing morbid news, "Old guy, came to give a statement, up and died on the breakroom couch!" Martin blinked slowly, shocked. Maybe this kind of thing was normal for an Institute of the paranormal? If his Master's in Parapsychology were genuine, he'd probably know these things.


	11. MAG 011: Dreamer

The figure of the woman in the basement archive took longer than usual to fade. The profusion of inky tendrils that had covered the dreamworld before his statement were gone, but when he checked on her she remained, face frozen in terror.

Sometimes there was something else in the Archives, a yellow door bordered in black tendrils, but he could never spot it outside of his periphery. Oliver did his best to ignore it, but he couldn't stop himself from checking on the slowly-fading Archivist, and as long as he returned the door lurked at the edge of his vision.


	12. MAG 012: First Aid

Sasha picked at her cuticles as she watched the slowed down footage of the empty A&E. She'd thought she'd seen a flicker, the first time through, but neglected to take down the timestamp, so now for thoroughness' sake she had to review it all.

Her eyes felt dry when she caught it again. She rewound the footage a bit and started going frame by fuzzy, empty frame.

"Eugh!" Tim and Martin both startled at her exclamation.

"Alright?" Martin asked. She gestured at her screen, and the bloodshot eye that filled it, clearer than any other part of the footage.


	13. MAG 013: Alone

She sits in her apartment- their apartment, she couldn't bring herself to move- after the funeral, after she's released from hospital. She stares at the wall and worries the piece of gravestone in her hands. Tries to remember Evan's voice, and to keep the emptiness from swallowing her up. She had found some solace in emptiness, once, but now it terrifies her.

On the good days, she hears Evan's laugh, can almost feel his arms around her. Hears him telling her to turn left and feels the overwhelming relief all over again. She tries not to remember the bad days.


	14. MAG 014: Piecemeal

When the man came into her home, boiling over with rage and hate targeted indiscriminately at everyone around him, it wasn't difficult for Angela to slip a receipt out of his pocket, just in case. In the course of their short meeting, he confirmed all her misgivings. She took her time assembling his puzzle. He didn't seem like a patient man.

She was right. The receipt _was_ unnecessary. The fool took matters into his own hands, and, well. The Flesh demanded its tithe, and was more than happy to sate itself on the man who denied it its original target.


	15. MAG 015: Lost Johns' Cave

He told himself he was being melodramatic. Laura and Alena had gone caving dozens of times over the years, and never brought home anything worse than a bad scrape. He knew how careful Laura was, had watched her pore over maps and manuals to ensure that this trip would be as safe as she could make it.

But eventually it had been 24 hours since they went into the cave and he hadn't heard from them. When he called the Cave Rescue Service they had no record of the permits he'd _watched_ Laura fill out. And Alena never came home.


	16. MAG 016: Arachnophobia

This had been a good home for Major Tom. He was permitted to come and go as he pleased, and the human was willing to give him attention when he wanted and ignore him when he didn't.

That was before the Spider came.

He'd never been as frightened as when the human left him alone with it. The human expected him to kill it, but Major Tom was too unnerved. And when it came _back_ he knew he had to leave. He walked out the catflap and never returned. This human had been a good one. It was a shame.


	17. MAG 017: The Boneturner's Tale

He had almost convinced himself that the whole thing with Jared and _The Boneturner's Tale_ had never happened. He had briefly paranoid, after going to the Magnus Institute, that Jared would know somehow, and find him, and… he never knew what happened to Jared's parents, after. But nothing happened, and the fear passed.

He'd last seen Jared a decade ago, but he knew the figure across the street could be no other. He was bloated now, hints of extra fingers grasping out from the closure of his coat, instead of angular. Sebastian failed to keep his voice even, "Hello, Jared."


	18. MAG 017: The Boneturner's Tale- Again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAG 17 gets two bc Jared is creepy af but Elias also has some Choice creepy-in-retrospect action this ep ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

He was a bit surprised to find himself disappointed. Of course it was much too soon for his Archivist to begin coming into his power, asking if he'd Seen his assistant was more joke for his own benefit than anything. But he still feels melancholy as he Looks at his Archivist from his office and imagines how spectacular he'll be- but not today.

He consoles himself with the memory of Ms. Herne's statement. Had Jon felt satisfied, after? Elias had, Looking at the increasing power of Beholding in the Archivist's mind, and later, watching the first of his tortured dreams.


	19. MAG 018: The Man Upstairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning that this chapter is brought to you by the visibly ill and vomiting in public gang...

Since becoming Head Archivist, Jon had tried to maintain professional decorum with his assistants. But Christof Rudenko's statement…

Reading it, he could almost smell the rot and asphalt of Toby Carlisle, feel the greasy slide as the ceiling dumped it's contents onto poor Christof and the plumber's heads. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat, and he must be deathly pale. Maybe he _shouldn't_ have had his lunch before recording…

"Woah!" Sasha jumped to her feet when he swayed out of his office. "You okay?"

In response, he vomited into the trashcan, covered in cold sweat and embarrassment.


	20. MAG 019: Confession

The Distortion had nothing to do with Father Edwin Burroughs, technically. The Spiral had marked him independently. Still, the same faith that drew the other part of themself to him drew Michael.

Michael had believed like that, in Gertrude. Maybe that was why he had been changed, instead of devoured. The pain of being denied _his_ devotion seemed to curdle in the bottom of Father Burroughs' very soul.

Michael opened his door into the former priest's cell, and laughed when it was disregarded as another hallucination. A grin split their mouth as he asked, "Would you like it to end?"


	21. MAG 20: Desecrated Host

The only surprising thing about the door was that it was relatively tame, compared to his usual hallucinations. Its color reminded him of the stole he wore to his final, false, Mass. But it did not compel him to do anything, nor torment him with disturbing images.

The- man?- that stepped out of the door, his laugh, more than made up for its apparent harmlessness. He- it?- tipped the door open invitingly, head tilted so far the neck should have broken. "Would you like it to end?"

He knew in his gut that this end would not be a relief.


	22. MAG 021: Freefall

Harriet had had high (ha!) hopes for her coworker. Simon had been more dubious- Harriet was young, after all, and fairly new to their patron. But Harriet's talk about Robert Kelly's passion for skydiving and isolation- the isolated always took to the Powers more easily- had been enough for him to make the trip out.

Simon had briefly shared Harriet's optimism, when Robert emerged from the Vast and nearly failed to pull his parachute. He did, though, and Simon was vindicated in his suspicion that Robert Kelly would not be able to properly appreciate the sky in _all_ its majesty.


	23. MAG 022: Colony

When he stared at the wall for too long, Martin saw worms writhing their way through the plaster. But when he startled, and blinked, they would vanish, the result of inactivity, boredom, and fear.

When ( _if_ , whispered the most frightened part of him) this was over, he swore to take up a hobby. If he had a proper hobby he might feel better.

He had tried writing poetry, but:

> I'm going
> 
> To be eaten
> 
> By wor

The final word cut off half finished with a gouge through the paper from when Jane had knocked again and he'd jumped in fright.


	24. MAG 023: Schwartzwald

Jonah had briefly considered returning the book to its home in the Schwartzwald. He'd acquired it by implying without implying that some aspect of the mausoleum might cling to the book itself, at which Albrecht had been more than happy to leave it in Jonah's "expert hands," but he did consider that his manipulation may have been based in truth, even unintentionally.

But then, wasn't one temple to the Eye as good as another? And if the eyeless vagabond wanted the book back, Jonah was more than confident that _he_ was more powerful than any other servant of his patron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bastard man with bastard plans!


	25. MAG 024: Strange Music

When he hears the music for the last time, it's so close that he nearly jumps out of his skin. It sounds like the calliope organ is within him, even louder than when Leanne had played it for him. He turns wildly, looking for the source even though from past experience he will find none.

He's so focused on finding the Calliophone's red that he doesn't notice the movement at the edge of his vision. Something wraps around his neck and his vision is overcome by spots- his last thought is that it's rough, but doesn't feel like proper rope.


	26. MAG 025: Growing Dark

Natalie barely glanced up from her book as Kathy hauled her boyfriend in, pulling him close for a kiss. It still somewhat boggled, how she and Kathy could grow up so close and Kathy could still end up with a _boyfriend_ sleeping over. She didn't want to be rude, and Kathy could make her own choices, it just… wasn't what she and Natalie had pictured as children, was all.

It didn't help that Natalie didn't especially like The Boyfriend. Nothing specific, or actionable, just… dislike. She pulled herself off the couch- she could always call her mum to complain again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> k, natalie's interests according to mark are "crochet, politics, and God" and his example of a book topic she'd be reading was "the political history of the bonnet" so sorry to mark, i think pre-cult natalie slapped and you were actually kinda a dick. idk, i've been the weird religious friend and i'd kill to get my hands on that hypothetical book, there's some projection happening. no plans to join a fear cult tho XD


	27. MAG 026: A Distortion

Michael didn't rightly _know_ why it had helped Sasha. Maybe it was some part of the Michael-that-was, sympathizing with another Assistant unknowingly in the line of fire for their Archivist's sake. But the knowledge of how to fend off the Flesh Hive aided the Archivist as well.

He told himself it was because _he_ wanted to be the one to kill the Archivist, not some two-bit insect. In affection or hatred, the Archives were _his._ It wasn't Gertrude, but her successor was a decent enough substitute. No doubt _he'd_ begin callously sacrificing people for his own greater good soon enough.


	28. MAG 027: A Sturdy Lock

Michael was delighted when he realized Paul MacKenzie was looking for a _key_ to its door. It even left one in the bottom of a drawer for him to find. They'd intended to take him as soon as he became unnerved enough to ask his son to stay the night, to terrify Marcus as completely as possible before eventually claiming him, but Paul's ongoing terror of being disbelieved was _delicious_. Almost better than having him wandering its hallways.

They were quite put out when a stroke killed him before they had a chance. Still a death from fear but… unsatisfying.


	29. MAG 028: Skintight

Melanie wouldn't admit it, but she was grateful Georgie was willing to sit through her rant. It was the least she owed her, arguably, being the one to recommend Sarah.

"He was so… _dismissive_! Where does he get off… _Jonathan Sims_ ," she hissed, abandoning coherency in favor of spite.

Georgie paled. Melanie stopped. "What."

Georgie cleared her throat, the paleness turning to a blush. "I just. Didn't realize he'd been made an archivist."

"Do you _know_ him?"

Georgie avoided her gaze, but Melanie wasn't about to let this go. Eventually, avoiding eye contact, Georgie said delicately, "We used to date."


	30. MAG 029: Cheating Death

Gertrude nearly dropped the statement Fiona handed her in disgust. She'd become used to… less than sanitary conditions in her time as Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, but they generally did not invade the Archives without warning. She supposed the commotion from earlier was genuine, not just melodrama as she'd assumed.

Looking at Fiona's pale face, she bit back the burn of curiosity in favor of skimming the statement. She'd found that skimming them often had a lesser effect than properly recording. At any rate, Nathaniel Faro seemed unlikely to be a threat, so she largely disregarded his statement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elias, every time Jon asks a question, absolutely knowing the answer: idk a guess we'll never know for sure, you should do your own research archivist (◡ ‿ ◡ ✿)


	31. MAG 030: Killing Floor

Jon rested his forehead on the surface of his desk, moving the statement to gain access to the coolness of the wood. He didn't dare move; he didn't feel nearly as sick as he had reading Christof Rudenko's statement, but leaving his office felt like too much of a risk. Vomiting in front of one's assistants once was embarrassing; twice and he'd either have to fire all of them or quit himself.

He was fairly certain the cafeteria sold salads. The food there was never especially good, but at the moment it felt vastly more appetizing than his packed sandwich.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip to jon, at least some day he won't have to eat real food anymore :/


	32. MAG 032: Hive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice I skipped MAG 31. Well there's a reason for that, and it's that I simply do not Vibe with it.

Oliver's never seen someone with a death written on them like Jane Prentiss'. Instead of a single tendril driving into her head or her heart or her lungs, she's wrapped in intertwining inky blackness, ropy lines of death going in and out of her skin, her eyes and tongue. He can't begin to imagine what could cause that, but it looks painful.

He feels a bit guilty, knowing that the shop hired him on mostly because they were planning to sack Jane- for all intents and purposes he took her job. But then, she wouldn't be needing it much longer.


	33. MAG 033: Boatswain's Call

Elias keeps an even closer than usual Eye on the Archives. He Knows what statement Jon plans to read, this week, and he's… _concerned_ that his Archivist may set his assistants on the follow up work with a bit too much enthusiasm. The last thing he wants is a visit from Peter Lukas. Not now, while the Archivist is still so new.

He needn't have worried. Jon scrupulously respects the boundaries Elias had outlined after the incident with Naomi Herne. He knew Jon was the right choice for Archivist- with this much obedience their ritual might almost be _too_ easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon: Elias told me not to look into the Lukases, so I won't  
> Elias: !!!  
> Jon: However this is the last time I will ever knowingly do what he wants. From now on I will be stubborn and recalcitrant  
> Elias: ))):


	34. MAG 034: Anatomy Class

Erika took the lead in asking about the heart, because she had been human the longest- long enough to go through multiple names, even! If anyone would do it right, Erika would. They must have done well, once they figured it out, because their teacher left immediately. They tidied up the lab space cheerily, content in cleaning a mess from work well done.

They must have done well, because Professor Elliot didn't show up to any more tutorials. He did visit their house and take the apple they left him, though, so he must have liked them quite a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Erika and Max Mustermann should be the same person... entity of Trans Your Gender...


	35. MAG 035: Old Passages

It was decent enough that he had a Leitner to bring home to his mum (though Leitner's nameplate wasn't there) but did it have to be so messy? Gerard ended up half wrapping it in his shirt to keep from leaving a trail- he had no illusions about the police being called, with one of the idiots who followed him dead, and he didn't think his mum would bail him out. Especially since she didn't know he had a Leitner. He hoped they found a way to stop it- he didn't fancy living in a flat full of dead things.


	36. MAG 036: Taken Ill

"…You alright there, Boss?" Tim asked, pausing in the men's room entrance. Jon jerked, shaking water off his hands into the sink.

"Yes, of course, why?" He shoved his glasses up his nose with one hand and yanked down paper towels with the other.

"…It's not like I'm keeping a log of how many times you wash your hands, but this is at least the third time in the last two hours?"

"…I suppose the statement I read earlier has been… bothering me." He scratched the back of his hand absently as he hurried away, past Tim, avoiding eye contact.


	37. MAG 037: Burnt Offering

Gertrude stared at the statement. She hadn't thought, building the circle, of what might happen to the person to destroy it. She hadn't thought much at all, then- if she had, she would've asked more questions about why a ritual to stop _Agnes'_ ascension required photos of _Gertrude_. Or perhaps not. It was difficult to tell, with the Web involved in events.

It was so long ago: thinking back, she had been painfully naïve.

She couldn't quite bring herself to pity Jason North. With that curiosity, working in such isolation, she told herself he probably would have encountered _something_ eventually.


	38. MAG 038: Lost and Found

Jon set down the statement and reached for a pen. His stomach flipped when his hands found nothing. He darted his eyes around, heart in his throat, until he spotted it. He'd dropped it, was all.

He told himself that the fear was just his mind running wild with the contents of the statement. He hadn't acquired any Ming vases. But he didn't like how often that seemed to be happening, being so effected by the statements that only recorded on tape. He was distracted from the thought by the sight of a spider, and made a sound of disgust.


	39. MAG 039: Infestation

"I refuse to become another goddamn mystery!" He made relentless eye contact with Sasha, trying to communicate all he felt with a glance. The sickening feeling of encountering something unknowable, the idea of the only thing left of Jonathan Sims being a series of questions with no answers, the primal part of him that recoiled at the very thought. He tried to put the feeling into words, confess all his fears and misgivings, searched Sasha's face as though it held the answer to why he'd taken this job at all, why he'd kept it. The confusion didn't leave her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialog taken from the corresponding ep :)


	40. MAG 040: Human Remains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot that Elias straight up tells Sasha he hadn't been considering the worms a threat. He thought they were normal worms and that they should trust his judgement as their very honest boss! This is a totally unforeseen situation!

Sitting across from his bandage-wrapped Archivist, preparing to make a statement, Elias was torn between concern and pride. The bandages were a victory: the first mark _he_ arranged. But the refusal to go home and rest, well. That was potentially worrying.

When he told Sasha that he didn't want to look for another replacement Archivist so soon, he hadn't meant it, confident that he had _this_ situation well in hand, but now that Jon was refusing to return home without his statement Elias was reconsidering. He might have overestimated Jon's self-preservation instincts- or Beholding's hold on the Archivist was tightening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly do think Jonahlias didn't realize how bad Jon's workaholic tendencies were naturally


	41. MAG S1 Q&A

Martin tapped at the office door like he was trying not to be noticed. "Jon?"

Jon looked up from his desk, tired and suspicious. "Yes, Martin?"

"I was just wondering if you'd eaten lunch? It… didn't seem like you had?"

Before Jon could speak his stomach grumbled, answering for him. Martin looked like he was going to offer Jon food. Jon didn't want to eat anything he hadn't prepared himself. "I've been… fasting. To purify the blood…. From the worms."

Martin's worry became tinged with alarm. Jon buried his face in his hands. "I'm fine, Martin. Just a bad joke."


	42. MAG S2 Trailer

Martin glared across the desk at the tape recorder. He lowered his chin, trying to look straight across the top to see if anything was wrong with the buttons. He pressed the play button, stopped it, pressed play again. The button always popped up to rest perfectly even with the others, never sticking.

"Do you just not like me, is that it?" he asked. "Is it the poetry?"

The tape recorder didn't answer. He didn't know why, but he almost expected it to. "You have to stop staying on when we turn you off. We only have so much tape."


	43. MAG 041: Too Deep

Jon didn't take a recorder with him into the tunnels. Elias worried the fact like a loose tooth. Maybe Archivist's connection to their patron was not progressing as well as he'd thought. More importantly, it meant Elias had no way of knowing what happened while he was down there. Even if he made a statement on his return, it would be filtered through Jon's limited understanding of the world. He might not return.

He debated replacing the lock, or demanding the key's return. But then he'd have to explain how he knew Jon had the key at all. He stewed.


	44. MAG 042: Grifter's Bone

Alfred Grifter knew what the rumors around the music scene said about him, painting him as a man desperate for fame led to ruin by his own hubris. But he didn't care much for fame, or even the kind of notoriety that came with Grifter's Bone's urban legend status. He made his music for the pure joy of feeding his patron, reveling in the delicious violence he could pull out of oblivious idiots with the sounds he pulled from the keys. Nothing made him more content than the moment of silence that echoed over bloodied walls when they finished playing.


	45. MAG 043: Section 31

Basira didn't think that giving Jonathan Sims her statement would unsettle her so much. Something about the archives' flickering fluorescents and Sims' intensity had made it feel like she was living it all again; she could almost feel her hands blistering.

Maybe she'd let the entire experience unnerve her more than was warranted because Sims was the primary suspect in a murder investigation and they were technically sitting at the scene of the crime. That was all.

He hadn't seemed remotely suspicious of her offer to smuggle Robinson's tapes to him. She'd expect more cunning, from a killer like Robinson's.


	46. MAG 044: Tightrope

Nikola watched from her place at the circus' entrance as Gregor _reassured_ the father of the little boy who'd been the first to come in, a companionable hand on his shoulder. It was all so _boring_! The father was _hardly_ scared at all, now!

She could do so much _better_! If _she_ was in charge, she'd set as many visitors as she could looking, and let them _all_ discover their _less savory_ secrets on their own in the search. It _could_ be madness! Chaos! But instead the father ambled alone into the show, one in a _crowd_ of unworried guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Nikola like *gratuitous abuse of italics*


	47. MAG 045: Blood Bag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turned a mosquito into a bloody smear on my arm right after listening to this one, F in the chat :/

The archivist's eager requests that she attempt to contact Mikaele Salesa were endearing- Gertrude _never_ would have asked the likes of Rosie for assistance. But Jon's instinct was good, in this case- she did have the contact information from when the Institute purchased his artefacts. She told Jon she'd do the best she could. If he wasn't willing to believe anyone else about Salesa's death, he wouldn't believe it from her. It's not as if she knew exactly _how_ it happened, or had any evidence. Frankly, she wasn't sure she believed it herself, based on her encounters with the man.


	48. MAG 046: Literary Heights

Leaping off of the bell tower was _transcendent_ , so different from the crawling unease of being pursued by the Spiral. He fell and fell and fell, surrounded by stars, with _Ex Altiora_ held tight. He could have stayed there forever.

He could have stayed there forever, but he was well aware that his salvation came with a price tag. Eventually he pulled himself from the all-encompassing embrace of the sky and set out to find someone who wouldn't appreciate it as he did.

He left _Ex Altiora_ in a donation bin on his way- he didn't need it any more.


	49. MAG 047: The New Door

Jonathan Sims had seemed knowledgeable, well-equipped for strange happenings even if he didn't quite understand what had happened to her. She wasn't quite sure what gave her that impression; certainly taking in his component parts he hadn't seemed especially put together, with his flyaway hair and the stains she was fairly certain he hadn't noticed on his sleeves. Maybe it was the scars- evidence of battles fought and won. He'd felt _safe_ , in a way nothing had since she'd stepped through the new door.

She had felt so reassured she didn't even think to check the door, leaving his office.


	50. MAG 048: Lost in the Crowd

He had meant to go on vacation. He'd been careful to leave no indication to what was left of his mother of his destination, had actively avoided any libraries or bookstores, even bought one of the brightly colored shirts sold in any town with a beach and tourists. He didn’t like it much, but the intent mattered.

But evil was hardly restricted to England. Of course he'd see some tourist marked for slaughter (but not, he thought, for Slaughter). He almost left her- he wanted to avoid the supernatural so badly- but he wouldn't be able to live with himself.


	51. MAG 048: Lost in the Crowd- Again!

Tim checked the locks on all of his windows and the door, as had been his ritual ever since Prentiss. He peered through the curtains and jolted. What was that, in the shadows of the building across the street? A person, watching his flat? It might have been a trick of the light, but their skin seemed… speckled with some sort of blemish.

Or were they worms?

He closed the curtains tight and paced anxiously. He couldn't call the police, could he? What if it was just some vagrant? What if there wasn't anything there at _all_?

He slept poorly.


	52. MAG 049: The Butcher's Window

Elias kept himself peripherally aware of the Archivist's ongoing investigations into Gertrude's death. Thus far it was mostly harmless, and drew him deeper into searching out the Powers, and so Elias didn't intervene, even when Jon chose him as a suspect.

Not for the first time, though, he resented his body's past before he took up residence. The old Elias had been young, healthy, already tied to the Institute, a perfect candidate. But the effect when people discovered his former less respectable habits! What would the look in Jon's eyes be with this new "knowledge," the next time they conversed?


	53. MAG 050: Foundations

Tim stared after Jon's flustered retreat. He'd never have taken Jon as the type to have an affair with a cop and try to _lie_ about it. As if he wasn't a terrible liar! According to Elias, he hadn't even really _denied_ the spying and the stalking. Said he was "concerned for their mental health." As if being stalked wasn't the _worst_ strain on mental health!

He didn't know why he hadn't quit- that's what a normal person would do, if their boss was stalking them. It'd serve Jon right, if Tim quit. Might even convince Martin to join him.


	54. MAG 051: High Pressure

The Archivist was a pest, even if he was an oblivious one. And the things they had to prattle on about to get him to leave! As if _anything_ was the type of thing that _wanted_ to be bound to an object like that blasted table!

Still- their memories of Sasha James indicated that they'd considered destroying it, when it had first been delivered. The Archivist had been against it then- so like the Eye, to meddle where it wasn't wanted, trying to ferret out secrets!- but perhaps his mind could be changed. He might even become a _useful_ pest.


	55. MAG 052: Exceptional Risk

Phillip Brown's statement left Jon feeling… slimy. He didn't like to think that the justice system held men like that, who delighted in inflicting violence. He didn't like they way he'd felt reading it, as though _he_ enjoyed enacting violence. As though he himself was loath to be held responsible for that violence.

Overall, Basira's visit was a much needed bright spot- even if it had necessitated telling her about Tim's… unfortunate assumptions. He could only pray that the new tape held some secret that would bring Gertrude's killer to justice- justice that wouldn't involve the likes of Phillip Brown.


	56. MAG 052: Exceptional Risk- Again!

Sims… didn't look well. The manic energy she'd put down to the CO2 during the Prentiss incident but which had still sparked behind his eyes at their last conversation now seemed to dominate every line of his body and every word he spoke. She hoped that the mania would cause him to slip up, rather than kill again.

She felt more confident now, in suspecting him. He hadn't even _thought_ of the murder in his summation of the old tape until she'd reminded him…. She _did_ hope that the rumor of her dating a suspected murderer didn't leave the Institute.


	57. MAG 053: Crusader

Gertrude kept coming back to Walter Heller's statement, its implications. A predecessor, down there in the ruins for over a millennium and a half.

She'd noticed, as much as she tried to avoid it, how doing the work of Archivist- the proper work, of statements and data collection, not her self-assigned tasks holding back the apocalypse- left her invigorated, how small injuries always seemed to heal faster, afterward. Would it be worth it, to become something like that, if it meant she could continue her true work? Would there be enough left of her in that state to do it?


	58. MAG 054: Still Life

The thing that was not Sasha James rested on a bench across from The Trophy Room. They'd had an idea that it wasn't in use, but to find it empty was disheartening. They weren't involved in the preparations for the Unknowing, bound as they were, but they knew the skin was missing, as well. Frustration surged; the Unknowing would free them from the Web's ties, and the old Archivist once again meddled where she wasn't wanted to delay it.

They wouldn't tell the current Archivist anything, of course. As far as he would know, all was well with Daniel Rawlings.


	59. MAG 055: Pest Control

The feeling of heading home after a day of sorting through useless, quasi-supernatural drivel was intensely nostalgic. It almost felt like wearing the skin of a younger man, unblemished by worms or the stress of being Head Archivist. He normally hated the decorations that plagued this time of year, but in light of the effect Halloween had had, Jon was inclined to look more kindly on the plastic spiders and fake webs strung up around the entry of his building.

Perhaps this was just what he needed, and he'd return to his regular work better equipped to tackle the stress.


	60. MAG 056: Children of the Night

Martin stewed as he hovered over the kettle, waiting for the water to boil so he could bring Jon tea. He really hadn't meant to mislead him about Trevor Herbert, but the intensity on Jon's face when he'd accused him of lying was frightening. He knew Jon wasn't taking the recent stress well, but he hadn't thought it was this bad.

He didn't know how he felt about Jon knowing about his CV. He could ruin everything Martin had if he wanted, but it also felt nice, a bit, to have it out in the open with someone. With Jon.


	61. MAG 057: Personal Space

Unfortunately, it was occasionally necessary for the members of the Lukas family to meet, if only to keep the family expenditures in order. Conrad had once suggested email, or text, but Nathaniel had recoiled at the _connectedness_ of the internet.

This meeting had Peter in a cheery mood. Fortunately, there were no formalities before he could say, "So I hear your astronaut wasn't anything special!"

Conrad glared. "It's not as though you don't have foibles of your own, Peter. What has the _Magnus Institute_ done for our family, recently?"

Peter shrugged. "Doesn't cost near as much as a space station!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> legitimately WHAT was in the daedalus thing for the lukases and fairchilds? they could have accomplished the same thing with a boat, either of them. going to space is so expensive...


	62. MAG 058: Trail Rations

She moved as far as her frozen limbs could carry her, and yet somehow, impossibly, Benjamin's voice was still audible. Over all the howling of the wind and the insulation of the snow, still he called, "Come back, my darling! Eat me, and live! It will be warm in the cave, and your belly will be full!"

"There are no empty bellies in heaven," she reminded herself, driving her leg through the snow in another step. Her other leg stuck, sunk in up to the thigh, and she fell forward. She couldn't feel her hands.

"Come back! I'll be delicious!"


	63. MAG 059: Recluse

"Agnes!" Raymond Fielding clenched his teeth in outrage. The preteen looked up at him placidly, twirling a braid around her finger. It stalled some of his momentum, but only made him angrier. "What did you do?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Do to what?"

"You know what. Ronald Sinclair."

She held the end of her braid up to her face, pinching it's end. "He was leaving. He was nice. I kissed him goodbye."

"You had no right-"

The smell of burning hair filled the air. "Webs are awful flammable, don't you think?:

Raymond spluttered, turned furiously on his heel, and left.


	64. MAG 060: Observer Effect

Christopher piled up all his Outer Cults research, considering each item before tossing it. The pendant of the People's Church of the Divine Host- safe. The lighter from a devotee of the Lightless Flame- safe. The mirror… better not to risk it. Whatever dwelt at the Magnus Institute, he felt sure it would See if he destroyed one of its relics.

A few more items were set aside. There was a shop in London that would probably take the books he didn't dare burn. Collectors who might want the rest. He never wanted to think about any of it again.


	65. MAG 061: Hard Shoulder

It had been a long time since Daisy had dreamed of Isaac Masters' fate, but then, it had also been a long time since she'd spoken of it. That first week, she put the dreams down to dredging up old memories.

The second week, she began to feel unnerved. She never had nightmares this frequently, and she really never had the same one so many times in a row. The oddly synthesized presence of Jonathan Sims was increasingly unsettling. Every time Basira mentioned him or the Robinson case set her teeth on edge.

Why had she told him that story?


	66. MAG 062: First Edition

The lines of the scalpel weren't quite as straight as they had been on Dr. Tellison's patient, and it was harder than Mary expected to remove the skin. She put up a sign that said "Closed due to family emergency" on the front door, written in her best handwriting, so that the page would have time to dry.

When it was done, she carefully sewed it into the book and read the words out. Instead of a cleanly appearing apparition, Dr. Tellison was half-present and garbled. She couldn't even communicate how to do the binding properly.

Mary needed to practice.


	67. MAG 063: The End of the Tunnel

Stephanie was very careful _not_ to slam the phone down when she hung up. It was just lucky that she'd answered, instead of Erin. Who knows what talking to the Magnus Institute might do to Erin's recovery.

Even now, she still felt the credulous environment of the Magnus Institute had been why Erin resisted Stephanie's attempts to get her in therapy for so long. She only went in the end because it was couple's therapy, on the justification that Luke's death effected Stephanie just as much as Erin. It had hurt _so much_ to see her destroying herself like that.


	68. MAG 064: Burial Rites

Daisy gazed impassively down at where Basira rested her head against the desk. "It wasn't exactly your best idea."

Basira groaned. "I didn't want him to flee the country!"

"And now _you're_ going to have to flee the country." Basira glared, not appreciating the joke. Daisy shrugged. "Just wish I'd met him before you started your whole conspiracy. I could've told you there's _no way_ that man's leaving, at least permanently. He's obsessed."

Basira snatched Daisy's coffee from the other's desk and took a spiteful sip. " _Thank you,_ for the brilliant insight. Now how do I get _rid_ of him?"


	69. MAG 065: Binary

Tim kept his pace even until he was out of eye or earshot of Jon's office. As soon as he was, he raced to the men's room and locked himself in a stall.

He sank against the wall and pulled his knees up tight, trying not to hyperventilate. Why couldn't he just say the words. "I quit" and this would all be over. He still had friends from his old job, he could go back to publishing. He should quit, for his own sake he probably _needed_ to quit, but he couldn't _do it_.

He stayed there a long time.


	70. MAG 066: Held in Customs

"Got a box from the Buried, some Customs idiot touched it yesterday. Think he'll be there when I check?"

Peter Lukas snorted softly. "Unlikely. The Buried almost never gives anyone up."

Mikaele Salesa cocked his head challengingly. "Wanna bet?"

"Sure. Twenty pounds says he's gone." They walked companionably to the shipping container, far enough apart that there was no chance Lukas would come into physical contact with another being.

The cold of the shipping container only intensified with Lukas' presence. When the box opened to reveal a shivering but very alive Customs officer in pajamas, Salesa grinned at him, smug.


	71. MAG 067: Burning Desire

Elias should have known that his Archivist would want access to a key to the tunnels again eventually. The same need to _know_ that made a good Archivist wouldn't be satisfied living and working above such an unexplored mystery. Elias was loath to give it up, though.

If he had his way, no one but himself would ever enter the tunnels again, and then not until the next time it became necessary to visit the Panopticon or hide a body. He was categorically against Jon venturing where he could not be Seen. Anything could happen to his Archivist down there.


	72. MAG 069: Thought for the Day

Annabelle's permanent exit from the family seemed to affect her parents more than the temporary one she'd arranged in childhood. If she were generous, it could be because they had known that to be a childish misadventure, from which she would reappear, and thus saw no reason for concern. She wasn’t inclined toward generosity.

Maybe the thing that had filled her head with scurrying legs was poisoning her thoughts, but she felt sure that her parents cared now because of _how_ she vanished. Episodes of psychotic violence cast unflattering light on them in the way a runaway child never could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd forgotten Annabelle's specifically mentioned to have parents who defend her reputation after she disappears, and that messed me up a bit :(


	73. MAG 070: Book of the Dead

The thing that wasn't Sasha James stared at the laptop recently returned to their desk.

Taking the more factual memories of its victims was _easy_. Emotionally-rooted habit and personality were harder, but irrelevant since hardly anyone would remember to notice they'd changed. A skill like computer hacking _should_ be transferable.

Sasha James didn't have a formal education into computers. She used them based on an intuitive sense for how they worked. The thing using her name had never needed them. Failing to replicate Sasha's skill might _actually_ draw suspicion. It was _far_ too soon to show the Archivist their hand.


	74. MAG 072: Takeaway

Daisy quirked an eyebrow. "So, what's your spooky boyfriend got to say?"

"Stop that." Basira gave her shoulder a light shove. Daisy didn't shift a millimeter. "He says we need torches. As many as we can get our hands on."

Daisy nodded. "I'll start rounding them up. You go tell the sergeant."

Tension hung thick in the air as the firearms team made their own preparations, edging around the Sectioned officers. Basira loaded up with three torches. Daisy tucked a fourth into her pocket, patting it as though she could confer the security of the torch's position onto its bearer.


	75. MAG 073: Police Lights

When Basira'd said she was quitting the force, Daisy managed to keep a neutral face while barraged by contradictory emotions. Abandonment, relief, fear, preemptive loneliness. Would she still see Daisy, if they didn't work together? It was safer, away from Section 31- but at least there she met the dangers of the world prepared. The world itself was the same, only now Daisy wouldn't be with her.

She didn't voice any of it. It _was_ the right choice for Basira, and she doubted that Basira would appreciate the possessive surge that broke over Daisy at the thought of her leaving.


	76. MAG 074: Fatigue

When Jon's dreams weren't of statements proper, they were still heavily influenced by them. The stress, Lydia Halligan's statement, and the strange man on the footage combined to twist his dreams.

He walked into the Archive, and the floor rose up and devoured him.

He picked up a book, and a spider with curling, impossible legs ate his bully.

He took a file from Sasha, and the paper spiraled into impossible shapes, cutting him as she laughed.

A strange man held up a book and clapped it closed, and he was trapped inside.

Throughout every scene, Michael's unsettling laughter echoed.


	77. MAG 075: A Long Way Down

When Basira asked her to keep her taking the Robinson tapes as severance, Daisy's world tilted a bit. She was so used to keeping the most disturbing and dubiously legal aspects of her actions from Basira, and here Basira was, stealing from Evidence. Huh.

Even if it hadn't been Basira, she probably would have let the tapes go. They were pretty harmless, and weren't doing any good in police custody. Besides, she was glad to have an excuse to forget the case, and never return to the Magnus Institute to face its unsettling Archivist.

She still dreamed of the coffin.


	78. MAG 076: The Smell of Blood

Every time, _every time_ she talked to Jonathan Sims he was somehow worse. He tricked her into thinking she'd misjudged him, or caught him on a bad day, and the _second_ she had half a friendly thought toward him he'd pull the rug out from under her. This was the _last_ time. Fool her twice... well, she wasn't going to give him a third chance.

This latest felt especially beyond the pale. What could he _possibly_ gain from pretending he didn't know his own assistant? Did he think it was _funny_? What the _hell_ had Georgie ever seen in him?


	79. MAG 077: The Kind Mother

His suspicions about Sasha felt too big to grasp. That was why, when his thought after finishing with Gertrude's latest tape isn't to find the missing recordings of (the real?) Sasha's voice, or review her (double's?) behavior for clues of something amiss. Instead, he wondered dazedly if he should tell Melanie King.

This time he hadn't _meant_ to be cruel or undermine her, or even insult her. But what would he even say? Send an email, "Sorry for being a bastard, I was fooled by the eldritch being that's replaced the Sasha you knew?" She probably wouldn't even believe him!


	80. MAG 078: Distant Cousin

"I can't believe you just _agreed_ with him!" Martin's face flushed as he berated Tim.

Tim rolled his eyes. "Martin. He's _obviously_ up to something. All arguing does is make him more suspicious of us. This way, we can loop back around and find out what's _actually going on._ "

"…oh." It all made sense, when Tim put it like that.

As they crept through the Institute back to the Archives, Martin's misgivings grew. "What if he really is sick?"

Tim looked at him flatly. "Martin."

"Okay but what if he fires us?" His voice was pitching higher.

"The dream scenario."


	81. MAG 078: Distant Cousin- Again!

The new Archivist had followed along better than it could have possibly imagined. It had assumed he would send the table elsewhere to be destroyed, or make a big hullaballoo of it- plenty of victims, but also plenty of people to get between it and the Archivist and consuming him. It never thought he would destroy the table himself, _alone_ , with the Institute mostly emptied out for the day. It couldn't have designed a better scenario.

The Distortion is a nuisance, as always, but it doesn't care. Only fair the Archivist have some help to make him a real _challenge_.


	82. MAG 079: Hide and Seek

He could barely think, the terror and trauma from the Prentiss incident hitting him like a runaway bus, layering the current terror. The tunnels, danger hidden within his Archives, _spiders_ \- was he doomed to repeat variations of the same scenario over and over until one of them killed him?

The shadows shifted menacingly and the NotThem towered barely a few paces behind him. He jumped as he turned a corner- were those Prentiss' worms, back to life to make his situation even worse? No, a trick of his mind, apparently just as committed to getting him killed as any monster.


	83. MAG 080: The Librarian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 line of dialog borrowed from MAG 80

He smoked with an urgency he'd rarely applied to anything before this job. Gertrude was planning to destroy the Archives. _Destroy_ the _Archives_. His mind skipped on it like a record, unable to picture a world _without_ the Archives.

Part of him knew it wasn't rational, that it felt so impossible..

" _You belong to it too."_ Was that why the Archives felt so immutable? He's said it as if it were an obvious fact. The sky was blue. Jon's life was not his own. Was that how others saw him, an object, possession, a doll that thinks it’s a person?


	84. MAG 080: The Librarian- Again!

It made sense, that the person disrupting his Archivist's progress would be _Jurgen Leitner_. Unexpected, but in retrospect what had the man ever done besides meddle in the affairs of things he could never understand?

Each strike of the pipe against weak and yielding flesh felt righteous, an act of devotion to his patron. The Archivist was key to their ritual, and while an Archivist failed might be acceptable, could be planned for, an Archivist _sabotaged_ could not be allowed to stand. Jon was for _him_ to manipulate, not some arrogant librarian. The Archivist _belonged_ to him and their master.


	85. MAG 080: The Librarian- Again Again!

Tim had _known_ Jon was crumbling, that Elias and Martin were enabling him, that he was becoming dangerous. The stalking alone was more than enough evidence of _that._ But he hadn't thought Jon was this far gone. If he'd expected to find a body it was Jon's, not a stranger. Did he pick this old man off the street just to kill him? Was he here to make a statement?

Martin was shaking so hard his teeth clacked. Despite everything, Tim felt the need to protect Martin. The last unscarred assistant. He steered him away. "C'mon. Let's phone the police."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look there's a lot happening in MAG 80


	86. MAG 080: The Librarian- Again Again Again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, helen?

"Oh. Are you real?" Tim startled badly at the woman's voice. She was dressed in professional clothes, probably more expensive than anything Tim had ever owned, but they were rumpled and her eyes were circled.

He positioned himself slightly ahead of Martin. "Are you?"

The woman's laugh broken. "I'm not sure any more."

"Do you need help?" Martin peeped over his shoulder, solicitous despite everything.

She shook her head. "If you help me, I doubt you'll ever make it out of here. Better take your chance while you have it."

Tim nodded and pulled Martin away, protesting, through the corridor.


	87. MAG S2 Q&A 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Will Martin be okay?"

Tim handled talking to the police, when they finally arrived. Martin knew Jon had alluded to some police, especially any sent to deal with an incident at the Institute, having experience with the paranormal. He must have told Tim- or Tim found out some other way, he rifled through Jon's things almost as much as Jon poked through theirs- because Tim didn't edit his story.

Martin stared blankly. His primary contribution was to say "Jon couldn't have done this," and be brushed off. He half-listened as Tim arranged for him to go and be interviewed when the shock wore off.


	88. MAG S2 Q&A 2

He was so focused on the desire to get _away_ that he didn't realize until he was out of the Institute that running was the worst thing he could have done, if he wanted to avoid prison for murder. Should he go back, or was it too late?

He couldn't go home, it would be the first place the police would look. Where _could_ he go?

He'd never had many friends; certainly not the kind that would be willing to shelter him as a fugitive. It was with no small degree of embarrassment that he realized his best option.

"Georgie?"


	89. MAG S3 Trailer

Getting rid of the Robinson tapes was supposed to mean not dealing with the Magnus Institute any more. But here it was, back in her case load like a bad smell.

The boss was worse than Sims. She wondered if they were related; they had the same unsettling stare. Nepotism made some amount of sense- Sims certainly didn't get the Head Archivist job based on charm. At least most of his most irritating actions had seemed unintentional. Elias Bouchard was inclined to pose and posture like he thought he was a Bond villain. She couldn't wait to leave this place.


	90. MAG 081: A Guest for Mr. Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP to the original, much more lighthearted version of this one. It was going to be based on the comment that Jon's already graying, about 19-20 year old Jon's roommates trying to peer pressure him into buying them alcohol bc they won't card him, but you can buy alcohol at 18 in the UK apparently :(

He hadn't expected giving his statement to be so intense. He didn't know why; he'd long since realized that reading statements effected him on a visceral level, and now that he knew he was in service to an entity that fed on fear he had some explanation for the power of the borrowed emotions besides his own crumbling mental health. But he thought that going over something he himself had already lived through once would dampen the effect. Instead he found himself a terrified child all over again.

He spent the rest of the evening slapping away imagined scuttling legs.


	91. MAG 082: The Eyewitnesses

The similarity between feeling watched and feeling hunted should lend itself to a natural alliance, but Elias could never stand Hunters for long. They were fun enough to set to chasing their own tails, but that lost entertainment value quickly. Detective Tonner was no different, for all she tried to soften her claws.

It was almost relaxing. He couldn't speak freely like this with anyone at the Institute- he expected them to eventually catch on, or relay inconvenient incriminating details to the Archivist. With Detective Tonner he could speak in as many double entendres and inside jokes as he wanted. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm literally obsessed with Elias' smug little "I do" when Daisy asks if he knows where Jon is...


	92. MAG 082: The Eyewitnesses- Again!

She _knew_ the Magnus Institute was for freaks, that they were dangerous, that Jonathan Sims had pulled information form her mouth she never would have given in full control of her faculties, but she didn't expect… _that_.

The statement was in her words, though she'd never organized it into a proper narrative, much less written it down. What was Bouchard, _psychic_?

She thought again of the similarities between him and Sims. The bastard probably knew where the Archivist was because he had him tucked away in his own home until the heat died down. They both had another thing coming.


	93. MAG 083: Drawing a Blank

Georgie had thought that letting Jon stay with her would remind her of all of the reasons they hadn't worked out- the workaholism, the emotional withdrawal, the scathing mask he retreated behind. Those were all present, but the Jon sleeping in her guest room's foremost flaws seemed entirely new.

Whatever else, Jon was smart. So why was he so unconcerned about someone knowing her address? What kind of workplace dispute came with homelessness and a stalker? Did he know who the stalker was? He had to see that reading the statements wasn't good for him. So why didn't he _stop_?


	94. MAG 084: Possessive

Even with Jon absent, statements still needed to be recorded. Elias had been very clear on that. Martin had tried to arrange a rotation with Tim, but the other had refused on the grounds that the recordings were pointless and creepy.

When Jon had done them, Martin hadn't thought they were creepier than anything else in the Institute, but after doing one himself… he'd never experienced fear like that from reading an account.

He was just… worried, about Jon. That was it.

The worry and stress were so overpowering he felt drained after finishing, collapsing that evening in utter exhaustion.


	95. MAG 085: Upon the Stair

"Are you sure you're alright to be here?" Georgie knew Melanie hated feeling coddled, but she'd caught a glimpse of the bandage and the limp, and it looked downright nasty.

Melanie waved a dismissal. "I'm fine. I _need_ this." She threw back her glass of whiskey like it was a shot.

Georgie accepted the answer, "So, what's the new job?"

Melanie looked at her out of the corner of her eyes. "The Magnus Institute. Did you know your friend Jon's missing?"

Georgie raised her eyebrows. "Is he."

Melanie nodded. "Apparently they think he killed some homeless guy or something."

"Huh."


	96. MAG 086: Tucked In

"You're sure you want this with the file?" Eric asked, again. He eyed the stained scrap warily, as though the substance might leap through the plastic and bite. It wasn't the Dark's usual MO, but one could never be too careful.

"What else would we do with it?" Gertrude snapped.

"Artefact Storage?"

"Won't take something that small unless it's proven paranormal, preferably dangerous. Volunteering?"

He shrugged, sliding it into the file. The part of his mind that sounded like Mary whispered that the real reason was that Gertrude wanted to hoard its knowledge to herself. He tried to ignore it.


	97. MAG 087: The Uncanny Valley

Jude drove out to Gwydir Forest with a heavy dose of skepticism, but she shouldn't have doubted. It wasn't just the Stranger struggling with reading humans, the idiot plumber _really didn't_ realize what he had pulled out of the drain until they'd practically shoved it in his face. She hadn't had this much fun in years.

And then they'd needed the whole forest burned down! Desolation had reveled in the grief of nature-lovers and ecologists, and Jude delighted alongside her god. She wouldn't doubt the Stranger's ilk again, not if it was always going to be as good as _this_.


	98. MAG 088: Dig

The descent into the basement Archives didn't feel like a promotion. The place was shadowed and chaotic, with cobwebs crowding the corners. Tim whistled. "Spooky."

Jon glared at him, but didn't disagree. The air seemed to press in as though his every movement was being recorded. When he placed his small box of office supplies on the desk in the Head Archivist's office, the feeling of unease wasn't alleviated.

The desk had been cleaned but not replaced, and there was still red in the beveling and, looking down, Jon sincerely hoped those marks from poorly moved furnishings and not _fingernails_.


	99. MAG 089: Twice as Bright

Jon stumbled into Georgie's apartment holding his right hand oddly. Her greeting died on her lips as she looked closer. "What happened?"

"Just a burn." Jon's voice was strained, and the burn clearly encompassed his entire palm.

"Did you high-five a furnace?"

"Something like that." The words tapered off, and Georgie had to catch him as he swayed.

"You need a hospital."

"Can't…" He eyes were shifty, unwilling to tell her why.

"You're a wanted man, I know, Melanie said. But we can't leave it!"

A staring contest ensued, until Georgie huffed and went to find burn cream and bandages.


	100. MAG 090: Body Builder

Back at the Archives Tim felt… unstable. He'd felt whatever tied him here stealing pieces of him, and he didn't think he'd gotten them all back. He wished he knew _what_ was gone.

It wasn't the part that reveled in confirmation Elias knew _something_ about what was up. Or the part that seized on it for wild speculation- if Elias knew something was wrong with the Institute, why not warn them? Thinking they wouldn't believe him might hold weight as an excuse in anywhere else, but not here.

He thought it might be the bit that reigned the paranoia in.


	101. MAG 091: The Coming Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotta duplicates in this batch, bc I was driving through a canyon without internet access when I wrote them XD

He'd never been so unaware of a statement before. It wasn't completely lost- he doubted there was any pain or distraction that could keep him from absorbing a statement, now- but Mike Crew's words rang distantly, mixed with consuming wind.

He hadn't felt fear like this, before. With Prentiss and NotSasha there had been panicked adrenaline, pain from Jude Perry, but here his being was consumed by blind, empty dread. The distant knowledge of Mike saying he was still in his chair did nothing to lessen the his stomach's heaving or the gasping of his lungs, lost to unending void.


	102. MAG 091: The Coming Storm- Again!

Daisy listened with sick satisfaction as Sims whimpered and bit back tears, digging beside her. Basira stood at the edge of the growing pit. She'd offered to help, but there were only two spades. Daisy couldn't kill Sims tonight, not if he might be useful, not with Basira here, but she could still have some revenge, making him try to dig with his injured hand.

Focusing on rage felt better than dwelling on the knowledge that Basira had never been as oblivious as she'd thought. She had no idea what that meant, for them, and she didn't want to consider.


	103. MAG 091: The Coming Storm- Again Again!

He didn't usually leave so little focused on the Institute, but Elias couldn't bear missing a moment of his Archivist. He'd already been Marked by two narrow escapes, and if the hunter killed Jon, or mutilated him beyond use, Elias would See; his Archivist deserved that much.

His blood sang as the hunter nearly punctured his Archivist's throat but was prevented by her partner's arrival. The Hunt's Mark was easier to acquire than most, but the sense of glorious accomplishment under the gaze of his Master wasn't lessened for it as blood pooled in the hollow of his Archivist's throat.


	104. MAG 092: Nothing Beside Remains

It was delicious, the feeling of control, seeing a plan come together. Rosie's reliable obedience dismissing the police, the hunter brought to his heel, the detective bound, all satisfying, but they paled in comparison to _his Archivist_.

He'd Known, but that knowledge was meaningless in light of _Seeing_ his Archivist in person with _three_ new marks.

The Archivist shifted uncomfortably under his assessing gaze as Elias drank in his bandaged hand, the sluggish bleed of where the hunter had tried to take his voice, the scarring in his lungs that would keep him from ever fully catching his breath. _Beautiful._


	105. MAG 092: Nothing Beside Remains- Again!

Tim burned with anger. He'd thought that Elias had an _inkling_ of what bound them, but he'd been _arranging the whole thing_ , and Jon _knew_. Not everything, but more than he'd told _them._

The workday wasn't even over. God forbid they be allowed to go home early after learning their lives were tied to their evil boss'.

He boiled into the Archives, raging, Martin and Melanie trailing behind, and when he rounded to vent with them he found Melanie dazed and unresponsive and Martin _preparing a desk for Basira._ He wanted to tear the building apart with his bare hands.


	106. MAG 093: Contaminant

Lester knew he wouldn't be seeing his father-in-law again. There wasn't enough to have him declared dead, or even file a missing person's, but he knew. He had the headstone next to Dani's reengraved, adding a date of death- the day after he'd last visited- beneath Greg's name.

It brought him some comfort, to visit the codification of Greg's absence. Until he noticed a purple tendril creeping up the stone.

Dani would have wanted to be with her parents, but he couldn't lose this part of her, too. He had Dani moved to another cemetery, far from the molding headstone.


	107. MAG 094: Dead Woman Walking

Georgie tapped at her keyboard, not actually pressing the keys, just making a sound like light rain as she considered what to search. She tried to shove away the uneasy numbness that telling Jon her statement had brought back, but it kept seeping in.

She bit her lip and searched "what to do self destructive friend." Jon had looked awful. He looked worse practically every time he left her flat, but this time was on a new level.

She skimmed over the first article, telling her she could make a big difference in her self destructive friend's life. Could she?


	108. MAG 095: Absent Without Leave

Basira knew none of the other archival assistants knew what to make of her. Martin had tried to be welcoming, but the circumstances of her hiring and his own resistance to change cast a cloud over their interactions. She chose tasks for herself that required minimal interaction, and avoided the statements as much as she could.

No one outside the Archives seemed to understand what was going on, which she supposed made sense. The librarians were nice enough, helping her make her selections, but even if they didn't understand the rest of the Institute seemed wary of the Archives employees.


	109. MAG 096: Return to Sender

Daisy didn't know if she'd met anyone with a weaker self-preservation instinct than Jonathan Sims. He flinched from her, when she snapped at him, but otherwise seemed to have no issue working alongside her after she'd kidnapped and threatened to kill him. She wasn't sure if his lack of caution interacting with "Sarah Baldwin" was trust that she would protect him, carelessness for his own wellbeing, or if he just didn't realize the situation _could_ be dangerous.

When he turned his back something predatory nipped at her mind, told her to tear, to _hunt_ , the unwary man who'd trapped Basira.


	110. MAG 097: We All Ignore the Pit

The new Archivist didn't seem especially bright, but he was _fun!_ Gertrude would _never_ have admitted lack of knowledge, much less weakness, in front of an enemy like _Nikola_ , but her replacement had actually started _crying_ when she grabbed his neck, tears dripping onto her plastic! She almost wanted to change her mind _right now_ , so she had an excuse to keep playing with him.

But it was _better_ , to have him find the skin. She didn't think he _would_ , but better not to eliminate the option _too_ early. The Archivist's skin left much to be desired- all those _scars!_


	111. MAG 098: Lights Out

Martin really, really wished Jon was back, so he wouldn't have to record statements anymore, but every time he had the thought he immediately felt guilty. Why would it be better for Jon? It wasn't right to wish the exhaustion and terror and _wrongness_ he felt every time he read a statement on Jon or Tim or Melanie when Martin could bear it himself.

Had it been this bad for Jon all along? Had the background to his stress at his promotion and his paranoia after Prentiss been the terrible, draining fear of the statements? Why hadn't he _told_ them?


	112. MAG 099: Dust to Dust

He'd taken a blow to the head. The details of the attack were unclear, but that made the most sense; it would explain why from moment to moment he was unsure whether he was in Breekon and Hope's van or back in Daisy's police car. He hoped Georgie was alright.

What did they want with him? Nikola Orsinov had indicated she meant to kill him- would that be his fate immediately upon arrival? Or would they toy with him first? The memory of what happened to the anglerfish's victims pressed his mind. He didn't want to be remade like that.


	113. MAG 100: I Guess You Had To Be There

After a bit of waiting for the woman who'd been taking his statement to reappear, Brian's hands stopped shaking. He examined all the corners and crevices of the room, but there were no spiders here, not even any webs.

Finally, he got up to see where she'd gone. What if she'd had some sort of accident making tea? No one was in any of the rooms adjacent, not even on the other side of the door he'd _seen_ her go through.

It wasn't until he headed back up to the now-empty lobby that he realized he was now utterly alone.


	114. MAG 100.5: Assistants Roundtable

Martin set down the recorder after another grueling statement. He didn't understand why the effected him so strongly. Before working at the Institute, he'd rarely ever gotten scared at the kind of horror stories that sent his classmates into conniptions. Even after joining the Institute, he had a framework for what was real: the things in Artefact Storage were spooky, and Prentiss had been terrifying, but they were tangible fears.

He knew nothing in the statements, even if they were real, posed an immediate danger to himself. So why did they always consume him with the fear of experiencing them?


	115. MAG 101: Another Twist

Trapped with nothing else to pay attention to, Jon was acutely aware that something about Nikola Orsinov's unnatural cadence made his stomach churn.

Even after the panic of abduction faded into boredom with his unchanging surroundings, he felt almost feverish with fear. It all spiked unbearably when Nikola called him _hers_. It wasn't the panicked rejection of when Leitner'd said he… belonged… to the Eye- this came tinged with the intense fear of abandonment, blind terror that he wasn't _good enough_ for the patron he hadn't wanted in the first place, that it would leave him to the Circus's ministrations.


	116. MAG 102: Nesting Instinct

"How embarrassing for you."

Despite the justification of the Jon's stress from his time with the Circus, rage billowed within Elias. How _dare_ he be so flippant, as if he knew _anything_ of what the past decades, _centuries_ of work had entailed. As if he was anything _himself_ without Elias. He could resent him all he liked, but Elias Knew _his Archivist_ enjoyed the power of his position, when he wasn't affecting guilt and disgust. He fought the impulse to slap the younger man, grind him under his heel, show him his _place_ as _servant_ of the Eye. Of him.


	117. MAG 103: Cruelty Free

Kurt's hands shook as the strange man left. He didn't know whether to be more concerned about the threat that the man would get him fired- jailed, even- or the overwhelming impulse that had made him _tell him_.

What kind of person walks up to a stranger and just asks for their darkest secret? What kind of person _tells them_? Who carries a _tape recorder_ of all things around with them? What the hell was in the papers Dylan sent him?!

His stomach churned at the thought of what the man might have done if he _hadn't_ kept the papers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cannot get over how casual jon's voice is. "what's your darkest secret?" in the same tone as like oh, do you know what time it is?


	118. MAG 104: Sneak Preview

Whenever Tim thought of the last night of Danny's life, he always ended up wondering whether the Danny who returned to his flat had been the real one. Had he tucked a monster in to sleep? Or had he let his last chance of saving his brother slip away?

Sometimes he insisted it must have been Danny, he'd've known if it wasn't. What would be the point of sending something to lure him in, if they let him live? Sometimes he needed to believe it wasn't, that as soon as Danny entered the opera house it'd already been too late.


	119. MAG 105: Total War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double-checking the first name/family name situation for this, I discovered that Zhang Xiaoling shares her name with a paralympic table tennis player. Fun facts!
> 
> I also really want to know what Pu Songling and the Usher Foundation make of the Eyepocalypse. Like, are they mad they weren't looped in? Are they as powerful as Jon and Jonah, as the primary other Eye avatars, or do those bennies only go to the ppl who actually enacted the ritual?

Xiaoling hadn't expected the Magnus Institute's new Archivist to be so powerful. She had taken Gertrude Robinson's strained connection to their Patron as a point of pride in her own establishment, and an indication that Pu Songling was the superior institution.

But with a fraction of Gertrude's time in the job, Jonathan Sims' connection was powerful enough that he didn't even realize when she wasn't speaking English. She didn't know how to integrate that with her impressions of their sister Institute- she'd always seen them as sloppier, less purely connected, but while Jon's mannerisms affirmed that, his abilities did not.


	120. MAG 106: A Matter of Perspective

"I cannot believe you slept with Jonathan Sims. I might have to change my entire opinion of you." Melanie wavered in her seat as she finished her beer.

"I didn't!" Georgie was approaching the level of drunkenness that made her giggly and her cheeks were flushed.

"You said you dated!"

"Yeah, but we didn't _sleep_ together." Melanie suspected Georgie was exaggerating the slurring of her words. "Jon doesn't do that."

Melanie snorted. "What, is he a religious freak in addition to all his other flaws?"

"No, he just doesn't. Isn't interested." Georgie shrugged.

"Seriously, what did you _see_ in him?!"


	121. MAG 107: Third Degree

The Archivist's statements did little to actually fuel Elias, but he still felt sated as he watched Jon consume a new terror half a world away. And then continued to watch as his Archivist railed against Elias' approach to his education- as if he'd have believed it if Elias _had_ seen fit to warn him!

A different man might have anticipated his dependency based on Mr. Stoker's unfortunate trip to Malaysia, but Elias was well aware that the only way to ensure Jon absorbed anything was with an object lesson. It was what made it easy to arrange his Marks.


	122. MAG 108: Monologue

"Enjoying yourself?"

Elias was well practiced by now at preventing a flinch when Peter appeared from nowhere. "How do you mean?"

"Was there a point to that exercise, or were you just wasting my time?" The air buzzed with Peter's annoyance.

"I'd never do that, Peter." Elias continued answering e-mails, not deigning to look at the other avatar. "I thought you'd enjoy Mr. Blackwood's company."

Peter mouthed, "enjoy his company," rolling his eyes, before continuing. "Why."

Elias finally looked up, his eyes burning into the other man. "I thought he might be an interesting subject for a little wager. Interested?"


	123. MAG 109: Nightfall

Max Mustermann's reforming lungs seemed to flutter in time to the whirring of the tape recorder as Jon took Trevor and Julia's statement. They looked less like a proper pair of lungs and more like a landed fish going through it's death spasms, and Jon found it difficult to draw his eyes away. Of all the things that stalked humanity and comprised his work, why did so many of them have to deal in meat and viscera? Even if in this case they more closely resembled warped plastic. He counted himself lucky he'd no lunch in his stomach to lose.


	124. MAG 110: Creature Feature

The Web quite liked Hollywood. A film set had so many shadowed corners for spiders to spin their homes, the entire thing under the control of a handful of department heads, controlled by the director, controlled by the producers and studio. Layers on layers of people pulling each other through their tasks in service of a greater whole.

If it considered such things, it would consider itself lucky to have claimed most of the fledgling industry before the Stranger- film wasn't so different from theater, after all, and the recorded faces of actors could have an uncanniness of their own.


	125. MAG 111: Family Business

Gerard wasn't entirely surprised to see a new face when he rose. He'd expected the Hunters to try enlisting someone else to ask his aid eventually; for all they needed his knowledge, they didn't seem to think him particularly bright. He was a bit surprised at the man's appearance- was he supposed to take pity on this haggard, manic figure? Maybe he was the victim of whatever they were hunting.

He couldn't quite integrate the revelation that _this_ was the new Archivist. Gertrude never got so close to the edge, and he couldn't imagine her ever having been this ignorant.


	126. MAG 112: The Thrill of the Chase

Elias had never cared about Jon getting kidnapped before, and it was much less likely that he'd suddenly taken an interest than he'd decided Jon had outlived his usefulness. Why else send Daisy to _pick him up from the airport._

Trevor Herbert had mentioned being able to smell the Dark on someone; could Daisy do the same? Could she smell his fear? Would she even need to, when he sat so stiffly beside her? His only hope was she'd be more annoyed at playing into Elias' plans to dispose of him than at Jon himself. Would _anyone_ attend his funeral?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you cannot convince me that daisy getting jon from the airport was anything but outrageously tense. Elias stop bullying the archivist 2k20


	127. MAG 113: Breathing Room

Gertrude looked at him over the rims of her glasses, lips pinched. "This is all?"

"What else do you want? This is evidence of a new Power emerging!" Adelard paced in front of her desk.

"It's evidence of something. But that could be one of the Powers gaining a new wrinkle in its manifestations. Or confirmation bias."

"If it were confirmation bias I wouldn't have thrice the cases that _seemed_ like Extinction but weren't. So it doesn't have a complex identity yet, presumably these things take time!"

Gertrude shook her head. "It isn't enough. _My_ attention belongs on the Rituals."


	128. MAG 114: Cracked Foundation

She'd gotten the idea that the previous archivist had very little in common with Sims, but looking at the stack of plastic explosives the old woman apparently somehow acquired, it became a certainty. Sims could never pull something like this off. Looking at him, in his borrowed t-shirt and flyaway hair, it's hard to believe he even drove them here from the storage unit.

It made Daisy furious, that the façade was so at odds with whatever haunted her dreams. The constant, unnerving presence of such an unassuming, almost pitiful figure every time she dreamed almost felt like an insult.


	129. MAG 115: Taking Stock

They threw themself against their door and dragged their body down it to what passed for a floor. The dramatic gesture felt familiar, a warped sense memory of Helen's teenage tantrums.

It didn't feel confused, not like this, not like she had since becoming Helen. Confusion was supposed to be their home, their power and weapon, not something used against them. Talking to the Archivist was supposed to _help_.

They contemplated taking another victim, but the part that was Helen rebelled at the idea. Maybe doing it would make _her_ quieter. Near the center of their being, a door rattled. 


	130. MAG 116: The Show Must Go On

Elias already knew what the statement was about, so he was free to watch his team's reactions. It was good to have a baseline, just in case he did end up replacing his Archivist.

Jon himself was almost in a trance, half mouthing along to Gertrude's recorded words. Martin and Basira came closest to the Archivist's hungry rapture, eyes glued to the recorder. Melanie twirled a pencil, contemplating what it would feel like to push it through Elias' eye socket and into his brain. The Hunter just looked bored- there was a reason he hadn't bothered properly binding her here.


	131. MAG 117: Testament

He can't stop worrying Elias' insistence he come like a loose tooth. Sending Daisy on her own, or even just accompanied by Tim, made sense. A bigger team was more likely to be noticed. A bigger team was more likely to _lose_ people. He was tired of losing people.

And yet Elias had been firm on Jon coming. It could be his usual fixation on making Jon experience events and learn for himself, but that didn't feel quite right.

He knew he was focusing on this because it was simpler than his other worries, but he couldn't dismiss the thoughts.


	132. MAG 118: Masquerade

Melanie really, really wanted to tear into Elias' office like she couldn't tear into the man himself. She wanted to kill him, to end this, more than anything, but deep down she knew Martin would stop her. A tiny fragment of herself argued that in that case they should just kill Martin, too.

But she wouldn't. Martin was putting himself at risk- don't think of Dad- so she could do this, and it wasn't fair to him that she could _find anything_. What kind of rich freak had no safe? She hoped whatever's on the handful of tapes was enough.


	133. MAG 119: Stranger and Stranger

The lid of the coffin crashed down like a cymbal, ending the cacophony and confusion that drilled at her senses. Before her endless stairs stretched deeper into the dirt.

For a moment Daisy tried to convince herself it wasn't real- it was a trick of the mannequin freaks, or her nightmare had gained a new elaboration- but reality quickly dismissed those thoughts. The muck seemed to pull at her boots, urging her forward. Deeper. Was it better to be slowly sucked down, or to walk knowingly to your own demise? She had all the time in the world to decide.


	134. MAG 120: Eye Contact

Jon found the tape tucked into one of the drawers of his desk, and of course he listened. He could hardly do anything else- but he told himself it was to heal the last of the damage from the Unknowing and the coma.

Elias sounded smug, which was no surprise, but also euphoric. Was that what he sounded like, talking about his need for statements? Taking them? He told himself he'd never be that far gone.

He told himself a lot of lies, since waking from the coma. Had he always? Memories of before the Institute felt ephemeral and uncertain.


	135. MAG 121: Far Away

The new Archivist was just as entwined in the End as Gertrude Robinson had been when Oliver visited, but in an entirely different way. Whisper thin vines splayed over him like a net, sinking into it in places and resting just atop the skin in others- pumping their poison into him, or holding him together after the explosion? If he decided to give life another go, he'd be instantly recognizable to anyone else like Oliver.

The old Oliver would have rejoiced in someone avoiding their fate, but now he was indifferent. Whatever the Archivist chose, he'd be the End's eventually.


	136. MAG 122: Zombie

If the statement Basira had brought him was chosen randomly, at least on her part, the subject matter might be nothing but coincidence. But if it's selection were entirely random he'd more likely than not have received a false one, devoid of nourishment.

_Something_ guided the choice of statements, at least sometimes. He'd used to suspect Elias, but he didn't think the Head of the Institute's powers were quite so far-reaching anymore. Was this statement a joke on the part of whatever drew him to the genuine statements? Could an unknowable being of eldritch power have a sense of humor?


	137. MAG 123: Web Development

When he finished with Angie Santos' statement, the absence of the recorder's hum and the knowledge that the Archives had been attacked again in his absence weighed on Jon. He'd convinced himself, after Prentiss, that now that they were aware and monitoring the tunnels the Archives were safe. But of course the Archives were no safer than anywhere else. It wasn't Beholding's nature to interfere or protect.

Still, he felt like he'd been robbed. The feeling of safety had been false, but didn't he deserve _some_ kind of comfort, even if it was false? Or was he too far gone?


	138. MAG 124: Left Hanging

Jon was starting to believe there was something inhuman in him that the others saw but wouldn't tell him about. Logically, he knew that six months was a lot of time for things to change, and they'd all been through a traumatic event with the Unknowing, and the job was just as stressful as ever, but the part of him that couldn't comprehend how much time he'd missed searched for an alternate explanation.

Could he blame Martin, if he saw what Jon was becoming- had become- and kept his distance? Did _the Archivist_ deserve the comfort of tea and company?


	139. MAG 125: Civilian Casualties

Replaying Melanie's surgery, the tape crackled when he'd Known where to insert the needle. Jon felt it was a fitting effect- it had felt like a crackle, almost, Knowing running down his spine with uncanny feet in irregular time. It shouldn't have felt as good as it did.

Still, he had helped Melanie. If he was going to be a monster, he may as well be a _helpful_ one. And this time Beholding's power had been an unmitigated good. Except for the scalpel wound. He rubbed it as he stood from his desk. Maybe a walk would clear his head.


	140. MAG 126: Sculptor's Tool

When Peter finally left, the tape recorder was gone as well. Martin tried not to feel the pang of disappointment. It wasn't as though it meant Jon was gone, just that Martin wasn't doing anything interesting enough to be committed to tape.

Maybe he should let himself feel the disappointment- blocking it off sounded an awful lot like whatever made Peter so confident that he would stop caring enough to tell Jon about what they were doing. Unless it'd put the others at risk, if he stopped going along with Peter's plan? Why did everything have to be so complicated?


	141. MAG 127: Remains to be Seen

Sitting calmly on the prison cot was a tape recorder. Elias grinned. This was an excellent sign for his Archivist's progress. He'd Watched Jon consume new statements and try to reorient himself in the Archives, but this was better than that knowledge. The recorders, by now, were personal, as good as a signature, "The Archivist is Listening."

It was difficult to rein in the full force of his glee, speaking with the Detective. Things were coming together _perfectly_. Aside from the minor inconvenience of imprisonment. But too much enthusiasm would put her off his directions, and he still needed her.


	142. MAG 128: Heavy Goods

It was almost a relief, to be Seen and Known by the Archivist. It was antithetical to everything he was, everything _they_ had been, and it _hurt_ , but it also meant an End to his lonely existence since the world failed to be remade. And the Archivist or his friends might still make use of his final delivery, even if he wouldn't have the satisfaction of watching them be condemned to the crushing earth. Watching wasn't the Stranger's pleasure, anyway.

The being that used to call itself Breekon (or had it been Hope?) did not meet the End with regrets.


	143. MAG 129: Submerged

It shouldn't feel good, to know that Jon was Lonely in the Archives without Martin there. Even _if_ he was willing to give himself to Lukas and the Lonely, he didn't want to … _feed_ on _Jon_! He didn't want to get to the point that he didn't care about feeding on Jon. He wasn't sure he had a choice on that count anymore, though.

And the, the _nerve_ of Jon, to accuse _Martin_ of doing something stupid! As if Jon himself didn't go charging into stupid plans more often than he cashed paychecks, since becoming Archivist! And he criticized Martin!


	144. MAG 130: Meat

She wished the dreams were less nightmarish, after telling her story to the Magnus Institute. They were so bad now that she'd started seeing the woman she'd told her story to there, _watching_ Lucia fall into the meaty, devouring pit, and a couple of times she'd convinced herself the woman who'd passed her when she thought it was just another church to tour was the same person, as well. She didn't even know whether- or how!- to explain the dreams to her counselor- she had a superstitious conviction that acknowledging them in her waking life would only make them worse.


	145. MAG 131: Flesh

The one thing Basira wanted, after some wild goose chase for Elias, was to come back to an Archive still in the uneasy but mostly safe stasis she'd left it in. So naturally she returned to find Jon missing and days-old bloodstains in the kitchenette.

"What. Happened." It'd be nice if Melanie looked remotely apologetic.

"Jon went to get Daisy. I figured best case she's back, worst we're down to worrying about _one_ evil boss." The words didn't have the rage from before her DIY surgery. Melanie couldn't even be counted on for a screaming match to vent some stress.


	146. MAG 132: Entombed

Almost a week since climbing out of the Buried and Jon still felt like his skin was coated in grit, was still finding unexpected dirt under his nails. Was it going to torment him forever, a layer of grime reminding him of the crushing weight of cold earth always settled into the crevices of his clothing? He couldn't imagine how Daisy felt, he at least could reliably walk to the shower under his own steam.

He unhelpfully remembered the amount of sweeping his office needed after Karolina Górka's statement. He hoped the Buried wouldn't linger the same way for them.


	147. MAG 133: Dead Horse

Jon meant well, but the Everchase stuck to Daisy like gum on her shoe. Her dreams were free of the Watcher, but that night they whirred through a hunt that never ended, all the thrill of the chase without the catharsis of the catch. She awoke shivering with sweat, mouth tasting of metal.

She hoped his conclusion that the Hunt's ritual was no concern meant that Jon wouldn't be recording statements about it often. She'd liked standing next to him while he worked, enjoyed his quiet presence and the lack of expectation between them. It was peaceful. She needed peace.


	148. MAG 134: Time of Revelation

"The air of an unfinished meal." Martin couldn't stop turning the phrase over, especially after the complaint against Jon. He wracked his brain for other statement givers who'd vanished after giving their statement, but the only one since his time in the Archives he could think of was Helen Richardson, and he hadn't really interacted with her. Had the woman seemed like that, an unfinished meal? Jon would know, but even if he wasn't avoiding the others Jon was the problem!

Food tasted of less the closer he got to the Lonely; would his unfinished meal give a statement, someday?


	149. MAG 135: Dark Matter

The observation that the sun is still there feels unbearably pat, when he plays back the tape of case 0141407, but when he'd recorded it, felt all Manuela Dominguez's conviction and fervor, he'd felt a moment of terrifying doubt, the next time he stepped outside the Institute. The relief hadn't been proportional to the fear. Of course it wasn't; he should stop expecting or hoping for positive emotions.

Before he'd known what was going on, those first days in the Archives, he might've rerecorded his follow-up, but he couldn't bring himself to care when the statement was so stale already.


	150. MAG 135: Dark Matter- Again!

Manuela had felt wild, after the ritual failed, frenzied and bursting with the belief and excitement with no catharsis. She'd delivered a warning to the Magnus Institute and its Archivist. Stupid. It had to be her. The Dark Sun was perfect, the ritual was perfect, the only possible explanation was that Gertrude Robinson had again found some way to interfere in things that didn't concern her.

It shook her, being confronted all that time later by a strange man claiming _he_ was the Archivist and Gertrude had done nothing. It didn't make sense. It _had_ to be her. What else?


	151. MAG 136: The Puppeteer

Daisy didn't know what she'd expected. What would Jon have done if she hadn't been listening to the statement and debating its implications with him? She liked to think that he wouldn't have sought out Lagorio's original cuts out of plain curiosity, but based on the fact that _she_ was here, when no sane person should have willingly gone into the coffin, he probably would have.

She may not be able to protect the Archives staff from physical threats, she reflected bitterly, but at least she could protect the Archivist from himself. She wondered if Martin had done it, before.


	152. MAG 137: Nemesis

The primary annoyance of imprisonment was the increased number of people Elias had to Watch poking around his office. It had hardly been a fortress when he was present, but his absence and Peter's hands-off management seemed to have emboldened the Archives staff. Having the Hunter properly tied to the Institute was a mixed blessing- less for the Archivist to feed on in his dreams, with her protected, but back-up if the Detective met an unfortunate fate- but he didn't like the Archivist making himself at home. He'd separated those statements for a _reason_ , even if it had mostly passed.


	153. MAG 138: The Architecture of Fear

Smirke's statement wasn't _strictly_ necessary to Peter's goals, but he couldn't resist tweaking Elias' nose. He'd complain about it, but it wasn't as though his erstwhile assistant was likely to connect the dots purely from being given a statement about Jonah Magnus. The thought of Elias trapped and impotent, unable to manipulate his staff himself but Watching as Peter had his fun, brought a smile to his face.

He hadn't expected running the Institute to be this enjoyable, but he was increasingly glad he'd selected it as part of the forfeit for their bet. Better than a mere side benefit!


	154. MAG 139: Chosen

Jon didn't like thinking of himself as the Eye's chosen one, but ever since the Vanderstock statement it wouldn't leave him alone. Chosen for what? The question pressed at him, and he couldn't Know, no matter how much he tried. Nothing good.

Chosen by whom, at least, he knew. Not that Elias would see him. If he didn't sound so honestly surprised on the tape of his arrest, Jon would think Elias allowed himself to be imprisoned purely so that he would no longer be around for Jon to demand answers from. But it was probably just Elias' silver lining.


	155. MAG 140: The Movement of the Heavens

Basira had to tell herself it was better to know than not know. It was her only consolation for how shivers ran up and down her back whenever there was a reduction in light.

Jon didn't seem to understand just how much of a threat Rayner was. Of course he didn't, he hadn't been there, in the warehouse. Daisy had, but she couldn't confide in her the way she used to. No, it was just Basira. She had to make sure the Dark didn't come for them or the world, and given Jon's relative disinterest, she'd be doing it alone.


	156. MAG 141: Doomed Voyage

It was much more unsettling to watch Jon pull a statement from a person instead of something like the deliveryman had been. At least the seaman survived.

Basira didn't like how he'd turned her words back against her, claiming he'd only done it so he'd be at full strength. It had been too fast; Jon never had an explanation for his actions with that kind of turnaround unless he'd been thinking of one already. What was he planning to explain? Just Floyd Matharu and his insistence they take _this_ ship? Or had he done that before, and she didn't know?


	157. MAG 142: Scrutiny

Returning to Jess Terrell's nightmares was much, much worse after rescuing Daisy. Jon always felt the fear of statement givers, drunken in and internalized, but only rarely did he have his own experience with the contents of the dream. Even then, the presence of the Stranger in Dr. Elliot's dream or the gut-twist lurch of Flesh in the Boneturner's didn't closely resemble his own experiences. But being alongside Jess Terrell, underground with the weight of the world pulling her down, was almost as bad as being back in the coffin, even if the press didn't effect him the same way.


	158. MAG 143: Heart of Darkness

The Dark Star haunted him, deepening the dark of his lids whenever he closed his eyes. It filled him with a mix of awe and revulsion, wonder at the power and impossible beauty of the thing but repelled by the antithesis of the Power which now made up so much of his being. When he laid down to sleep things seemed impossibly bright, distractingly sunny in comparison to the great and terrible Dark that scarred his mind.

Jon found himself grasping for Beholding, willing to lose more of himself in hopes that it would fade the power of the Dark.


	159. MAG 144: Decrypted

Martin hated acknowledging that the statements effected him, even after learning there was something beyond the thrill of a spooky story toying with his emotions when he read them. Still, the evening after reading Gary Boylan's statement he left his phone in his pocket as he rode the tube home instead of piping music through his earbuds. Just in case.

It was strange, to be exposed to all the sound and chatter of a crowded rush hour car without the barrier of earbuds. The snatches of conversation and crush of bodies made his skin crawl. He wished he was alone.


	160. MAG 145: Infectious Doubts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the idea of jon and georgie being super close and growing apart messes me up :(

Jon was facedown on the floor like a starfish, face in an open textbook and the Admiral nestled between his shoulder blades. "Are you conscious?"

Jon's response was garbled by textbook pages. Georgie nodded. "Bright side: this is the last science class you'll ever have to take! You're almost there!" The next grumble sounded sadder.

Georgie snorted. "Let's get takeout, my treat. I'll order and you can work till it gets here."

Jon's head raised to peer at her with a single eye. "You're ordering Hungarian food, aren't you?"

Georgie beamed and gave him a peck on the forehead. "Yep!"


	161. MAG 146: Threshold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo, I'm back! I was trapped with no ability to access or download podcasts, and my entire downloaded backlog vanished, but the rest of the internet perfectly accessible :( it was so frustrating

"Shut up." Daisy and Melanie spoke in unison, each woman's tone obscuring the other's.

Jon shrunk in on himself, eyes hurt. Daisy sighed to herself. She'd wanted him to keep his big mouth shut so he didn't further aggravate Melanie, but their overlapping voices turned it harsh.

She'd bitten her tongue for most of the discussion of Jon's victims. Nothing she could say would please Basira or Melanie, and it wasn't good for Jon to feed the Eye like that. At least his victims lived.

She bumped her shoulder against his as she went by, hoping to convey silent solidarity.


	162. MAG 147: Weaver

Jon couldn't stop rubbing his arms, even though he wasn't cold. He hadn't tried to stop a Statement in the middle for a long time, and the others rarely interrupted him anymore. It was disturbing that he hadn't noticed he couldn't, but not as much as the feeling when he'd tried, spurred on by Annabelle's taunts.

The constant feeling of being Watched, worse during Statements, had intensified until it was nearly unbearable, as if he was channeling the totality of the Eye, world narrowed to nothing but the page until he'd stopped resisting. Compliant. He wasn't eager to try again.


	163. MAG 148: Extended Surveillance

The written Statements couldn't haunt his dreams, but they still stalked Jon whenever his thoughts wandered, or in the moments before proper sleep. When he caught sight of his reflection, he almost expected to see his own eyes transformed into lenses, cracked or with a pinprick of artificial light behind them. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, well, he wasn't certain he had one anymore. Maybe he'd lost it when he first signed his contract with the Institute years ago, and just hadn't noticed. A hollow tool.

But no. His decisions were his own. He'd accepted that.


	164. MAG 149: Concrete Jungle

Gertrude had intended, before receiving Adelard's last missive, to include a jab at the end of her thanks for Judith O'Neill's statement. How smug he must have been, to find someone with a story that fitted so neatly with his pet theory.

Instead, she slid the letter, half-finished, into the file. No point in continuing it, now that its intended recipient was gone. Another ally lost in the fight against the Entities. She surprised herself with the amount of regret she felt. Adelard had almost been a friend- they'd known each other for years. It was a shame, losing him.


	165. MAG 150: Cul-De-Sac

Alberto had initially thought that Herman's breakdown over the phone had been a ploy, maybe covering for something happening to the moose. He'd hung up in disgust. But when Herman finally did arrive at their- his- house, he did seem changed.

Alberto told himself he didn't care, and as they reconciled he revised that opinion into a conviction that whatever had happened to Herman, he didn't want to know the details. Better to work around his newly intensified hatred- surely it wasn't fear it was tinged with- of the suburbs than bring back that haunted, lonely look in his eyes.


	166. MAG 151: Big Picture

Simon gazed up at the Eye replacing the sky and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He'd really started to think that the Rituals were impossible, they were all kidding themselves in pursuit of something beyond any of them, but there it was. It would delight him, normally, to be proven wrong in such a way.

But the sky. The Eye was just as Vast and incomprehensible, but it had no stars, no cloudy days or endless blue. He hadn't loved the sky for its Vastness, or at least not only. He'd loved it because it was the _sky_.


	167. MAG 152: A Gravedigger's Envy

Jonah wrinkled his nose disdainfully at the dirt that stained the floors of the late Nathaniel Beale. He'd come to investigate upon hearing of the disappearance and the man's strange friend- the more he'd heard, the greater his certainty that whatever happened to Mr. Beale was connected with the Buried, and a proper Avatar of the Buried was so rare. It hadn't occurred to him until he saw it that the Buried meant _dirt_.

Still, it was without much difficulty that he was able to locate Wakely's letters among Beale's effects and leave for cleaner surrounds, giddy with his prize.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's actually v fun to write old rich snobby bastard Jonah XD


	168. MAG 153: Love Bombing

When they finished explaining everything to Basira and Jon was alone once more, he found himself abruptly plunged into a state of panic. Daisy was dying. His heart raced. He'd pulled her out of the Buried only to watch her waste away from lack of the Hunt. He knew she didn't want it back, would rather die herself, he _knew_. But a good death was still another death in the Archives. Tim died pleased with finally getting his revenge. He was still gone. Jon selfishly, selfishly did not want _Daisy_ to be gone, even at the cost of her humanity.


	169. MAG 154: Bloody Mary

Georgie's hand shook as she accepted the call. Melanie never called, was something wrong? "Mel?"

  
"I'm quitting!"

Georgie blinked, chewed her lip. "I thought you couldn't?"

"Jon figured out a way, rough but it's worth it." Her voice faded a bit from it's excited intensity.

"Huh. Well what is it?"

Melanie's voice was quieter, almost afraid. "I've got to blind myself."

Georgie bit back her first response, trying to work through her shock and alarm as quickly as possible. "You know I'll support you, whatever you need to do to get out of this."  
"Yeah. Love you."

"Love you too."


	170. MAG 155: Cost of Living

Hungry as he was, Jon was pathetically grateful that Tova McHugh's statement had not been taken live. He thought of the shape his visits to her dreams would have taken, and he wanted neither the reminder of his own near-death, nor of the kind of thing he was becoming.

He was also grateful that Melanie had stopped doing any work before he'd thought to look into the McHugh statement. He felt certain that a reminder like that would well and truly destroy any chance of remaining on good terms after she quit, and he did care for Melanie, despite everything.


	171. MAG 156: Reflection

He couldn't remember if his life had ever looked like this. The man he'd followed had some similarities to him, but he didn't remember this life. Were they the same person from different realities, and he was simply the one cursed to misery? Not fair.

The fat man- what else could he call someone with so much meat on their bones?- lived alone. If he wanted to take his place, it wouldn't be too difficult to prevent anyone from noticing the difference until he had some meat himself. And the body would be no issue. He wouldn't waste good meat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this episode lives in my head rent-free


	172. MAG 157: Rotten Core

The Hunter- he assumed, though there wasn't the usual feverishness- was impressive, in his ability to surprise John, in what should be his moment of triumph. It had been a long time, since someone did that. He thought of finding him, taunting him with his inability to be rid of John. It was a long time since he'd played that game. Not that he'd go without a fight today.

The thoughts stopped when he felt the impact of cold sludge and recognized concrete. John Amherst Ended afraid of what he had inflicted so callously, but not been truly touched by.


	173. MAG 158: Panopticon

The view from prison couldn't do justice to what it was like to actually be in the actual presence of his Archivist. It was intoxicating, standing in the center of his power alongside such a concentrated vessel of Beholding's power. He searched out the new Marks, pressed into Jon since their last meeting. He was nearly finished, now. Almost complete.

Jon wielded Compulsions so casually, Elias wondered if he even realized he did it. He was perfect. He was glorious. A testament to centuries of work and scheming, standing before him like a beacon, drowning him in their Master's influence.


	174. MAG 158: Panopticon- Again!

Martin wondered at the difference between him and Peter. He exaggerated the Lonely's influence, but he didn't make it up entirely. Why leave Martin drained, when Peter stayed so chipper? Maybe it had to carve out the part that tried to caretake the others, but Peter had always been like this. Martin didn't know much about his background, other than what was in the statements, but he could imagine what growing up in the Lukas household might've been like. But then, what he imagined wasn't so different from Martin's own childhood. Another mystery, though he didn't care to solve it.


	175. MAG 158: Panopticon- Again Again!

Letting the Hunt in felt like the most euphoric high and ripping her soul out all at once. She tried to think of why she was doing it, Basira sprinting for safety and the time Jon needed to make it through the tunnels, but it was drowned in the pounding of blood in her ears and the rumble of a growl in her throat. She lunged for her prey, delighted at the glee fading from their eyes as they realized they'd made a mistake in challenging her.

She tore into one of them and realized she couldn’t picture Basira's face.


	176. MAG 159: The Last

The piece of himself Martin had been guarding stopped mattering the moment the fog closed around him. He made a token effort to shake it away, return to the world, but he'd never been this deep before. He didn't feel the shock or fear he'd heard in the Lonely statements. Just acceptance.

This was where he was destined to be, one way or another. All his attempts to stave off isolation has just been lies to himself and everyone else, putting off the inevitable. He was _always_ going to be alone. The only one who hadn't seen it was him.


	177. MAG 159: The Last- Again!

He'd really thought that all Elias' bragging about his Archivist was just smugness. Martin's perceptions were obviously clouded by infatuation, and the whispers he'd heard of complaints and the trepidation of the staff came from those unacquainted with the Powers.

But he'd never talked about _anything_ for so long at a stretch, especially himself. Elias probably didn't deserve the favor of keeping his plans secret, but Peter couldn't regret it in the moment between the realization of his End and its actuality. Much funnier to leave the poor Archivist still scrambling for answers than to endure the fallout revealing them.


	178. MAG 159: The Last- Again Again!

The Lonely pounded Jon with _wrongness_ and loss. Was he really foolish enough to think Martin had any care for him, after all Jon and the Institute subjected him to? Tim and Sasha were gone, Basira and Daisy good as, and Georgie and Melanie were well out of it all. If he'd ever had anyone, he certainly didn't anymore.

The feeling of being Watched pressed down on him, clearing his thoughts. Even if Martin never wanted to see him again afterward, he came here with a purpose. He cared about Martin, and if he was safe that would be enough.


	179. MAG 159: The Last- Again Again Again!

Even as it represented a culmination of his Archivist's Becoming, Elias felt bereft when Jon entered the Lonely, as if he were the one Forsaken. All the work, all the opportunities used preparing Jon, all the power this Archivist channeled- what if he didn't return? Even as he was, Jonah Magnus was mortal enough to doubt.

There was a more tangible loss that came with the Archivist entering another's domain, taking the power he carried with him, and even in the Panopticon it felt for a moment like the air had left the room, the Gaze of their God averted.


	180. MAG 160: The Eye Opens

The only reason Martin thought this was real and not some delusion conjured as he faded into the Lonely for good was that everything here felt so antithetical to the Lonely in every way. Jon's hand in his, his skinny form in Martin's arms as they crammed into the safehouse's lone bed, his smile across the table as they fumbled through making something edible out of Daisy's utilitarian food stores, all lit up a place inside Martin that had been dimming since the Unknowing. Jon looked at him like he couldn't believe he was real, and the feeling was mutual.


	181. MAG 160: The Eye Opens- Again!

The scan of his eyes as the Statement forced its way past his lips felt worse than any action the Web ever pulled him through. His hands shook, his voice strained, but as he went on his straining had less and less of an effect. Tears filled his eyes but his voice barely shook.

Jon was spared the moment of apotheosis and terror that swept over the rest of the world. The ringing in his ears and the spinning of his head left him less aware than he'd been in a long time, and then he was aware of _everything_.


	182. MAG S4 Q&A 1

Elias flinched when Gertrude staggered back to her feet. For a moment he was struck with the fear that he'd miscalculated, that she'd benefited far more from Beholding's influence than he'd thought, before realizing it was down to the last, desperate, adrenaline-fueled movements of a dying woman.

Dying though she was, the twist of Gertrude's face gave no doubt that she intended to take him with her if at all possible. He brandished his gun, hand trembling more than it had for the first shot. "I suppose I should have anticipated this. You always were tenacious." He fired twice more.


	183. MAG S4 Q&A 2

"Why're you always so hard on Jon?"

Basira side-eyed her. "He's _hurting_ people, Daisy. He's dangerous."

Daisy stared intently. "So was I."

Basira looked down. "That's different."

"How?"

"It just is!" She threw her hands up. "You're trying to be better."

"So's Jon. And I did worse than he's ever done."

" _Daisy_."

_"Basira_."

"What d'you care if I'm a little hard on Jon? Maybe he needs someone to be hard on him!"

Daisy snorted. "Think he's plenty hard on himself. He doesn't need anyone's help there." There was a long silence. "Cut him some slack, Basira. He saved my life."


	184. MAG Bloopers Special

Jon didn't know why he opened the Archival staff performance emails anymore, but he did. And once it was open it was natural to let his eyes skim over the usual: the pace of organizing the Archives remained unsatisfactory, Basira and Melanie spent too much time on personal projects and not enough researching statements, was Tim even coming in, blah blah blah.

This month, though, there was an extra line, regarding Tim using "language unbecoming of an Institute employee toward a superior." Jon was hardly going to complain about what language Tim used, which left… Elias. Huh. Good for Tim.


	185. MAG S5 Trailer

Martin's hands opened and closed, grasping a mug that was no longer there. After everything, making it this far past the end of the world, he wasn't going to have a breakdown over _tea_. He'd left unassertive, tea-brewing old Martin behind when he made his deal with Lukas, and he had bigger things to worry about.

He tried, as he had been since finding Jon crying and laughing with a Statement in his hands, to look on the bright side. The shock of the Not-Tea had been one of the biggest spikes of emotion he'd felt since coming here! Progress!


	186. MAG S5 Trailer- Again!

For all he could See, now, Jon still felt a spike of anxiety whenever Martin left the range of his more mundane senses. He'd meant what he said about comfort being a thing of the old world, extinguished along with everything else. And if that was true, how could Martin, his soft jumpers and softer hands, his hovering, caring presence, the way Jon felt safe and whole and human in his arms, continue to exist? Part of him was sure that the moment he lost sight of Martin he'd stop existing altogether.

Not that staying with Jon was any safer.


	187. MAG 161: Dwelling

Elias didn't go out of his way to interact with his employees outside of the necessary, but this was different. It may have been a celebration of the Archivist's birthday to them, but for Elias it was a private indulgence of his own mounting excitement.

His new Archivist was settling into his role _so_ well, faster than Gertrude had. He deserved to treat himself to a slice of that cake and a glass of that wine, and if he sang "Archivist" instead of "Jon," who would notice? It wouldn't be long before Jon's identity was subsumed into the Archivist, anyway.


	188. MAG 162: A Cosy Cabin

It was unfair, that the tiny crawling beings that inhabited the world interpreted everything so sinisterly since the Change. There were billions of them, interchangeable enough that none would _want_ to express specific malice toward most of them, but these two, the lovers at the center of the Eye's plan, belonged to _it._ Others might come, seek refuge in its walls, but they wouldn't be the same. It wanted _these two_ to stay, not to harm, but to keep them safe and together until they grew together with it and each other, forever one. But the Eye had other plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably going to end up writing and posting drabbles for the rest of the published eps in a big rush sometime this weekend, since I'm moved into my school housing but don't have class or anything to do until Monday :)


	189. MAG 163: In the Trenches

Martin covered his ears, but he could still _see_ Jon as he started the statement, the way his face went slack and when animation returned it didn’t look like _Jon_ behind the motions. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t bear to abandon all his senses in a place like this. Focusing on the other inhabitants of Kinloss Barracks was no better, all those blank and terrified faces stacked together, the minds behind them somewhere else.

So Martin stared down at his feet, trying to focus on his fraying shoelaces and not the suspicious, tacky puddle bordering them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *says I'll probably be running through all the new eps in an imminent batch*   
> *vanishes for a month*  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	190. MAG 164: The Sick Village

Gillian Smith told herself that the ache in her bones was from the weather, though it never changed from the balance of pleasant and dreary that wasn’t much of anything. She gritted her teeth and peeled away rot to reveal clean, white flesh (after this one, she thought every time, but it was always cerulean). The curling soreness was just an effect of getting older, and not contagion taking root in her marrow. They would root out the last of the foreigners and she’d bare her skin to the sunlight and things would go back to  being healthy, happy, normal.


	191. MAG 165: Revolutions

The righteous anger and aching hole in his chest where the memory of the real Sasha had been torn out boiled up within Jon as he called upon the power he dreaded and reveled in and focused it all on the creature that had taken her from them. Everything seemed to reverberate with emptiness for a moment, and then the reality of what he’d done hit him.

He’d indulged everything he’d gained from  _ending the world_ , and it felt  _good_ . He was certain Martin would be disgusted.  _This_ would finally drive him away, show him what a monster Jon was.


	192. MAG 166: The Worms

Building Martin up as his last connection to humanity- as the world’s, as one of the only truly human people left free- Jon had forgotten Martin’s imperfections. Had forgotten that Martin was as capable of resentment and hatred as anyone- that Jon had seen as much in practice- in the face of his precious, baffling forgiveness of Jon’s own sins.

Martin wouldn’t be pleased at Jon adding that reduction, into just what Jon feels like he needs him to be rather than a full person, to the list of reasons Jon doesn't deserve him. But Martin doesn’t need to know.


	193. MAG 166: The Worms- Again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you notice a change in formatting, with no first line indents... i changed word processors, and i don't have the motivation to figure out how to get them to transfer to the archive from the new one ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

If the worm that was Sam thought that the biting, gnawing fight with the worm whose tunnel he stole might remind him of the taste of food, he was sorely disappointed. Penetrated by the damp and dark, the other worm’s flesh was spongy and tasteless, blood mixing with mud until it was indistinguishable from the grit between Sam’s teeth. In the exhausted aftermath, Sam’s hunger was just a gnawing as ever, with only the addition of a dull nausea when he thought too hard about what he had done. He would not be allowed any reprieve, even a dreadful one.


	194. MAG 167: Curiosity

Without Basira or Melanie or Tim to scold or remind or guilt him, Martin allows himself to be grateful that Jon hadn’t known his death would free his assistants. Would Jon have gone into the coffin after Daisy, if he’d known? Martin doubted that whatever stasis or end the Buried offered would have been enough to free them, if Jon hadn’t returned. Would Jon have taken that risk, knowing?

Martin felt sure he would have taken other risks, that self-destructive part of him urging him into danger, seeing no downside to his death. And so Martin is pathetically, selfishly grateful.


	195. MAG 168: Roots

Martin had, perhaps, turned Oliver Banks into something he wasn’t. Between descriptions of him, “ _handsome_ ,” and his tape, the even, cheery voice with a sardonic edge... so different from Martin’s anxious cadence and awkward, average face… and Jon had woken up for him and not Martin!

Death, or annihilation, or whatever it was Jon did, was a harsh consequence for making Martin jealous. He could admit that to himself. But he couldn’t help thinking of Oliver Banks as yet another agent of a world constantly trying to steal away pieces of Jon, pieces _Martin_ wanted to keep, safe and cherished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> living for petty vengeful martin tbh
> 
> find me on tumblr @inklingofadream and send me prompts so i don't have to listen to my busted smoke detector beeping :/

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed any of these, leave a comment or kudos or check me out on tumblr @inklingofadream!


End file.
